


Find Me Where the Wild Things Are

by sakurazawa



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Fandom, The Crimes of Grindelwald - Fandom
Genre: #nogamescamander, BAMF Tina Goldstein, Epic fic, F/M, Jacob in OotP, Newt POV, Newt Scamander is Hufflebuff, Newt Scamander is a Dork, Newt is a romantic savant but also a moron, Other, Slow Burn, Spoilers for CoG, Tina POV, Tina is an expert at fantasizing, but they have to earn it, i'm a plotter sorry, not sorry, planned mature content, post COG
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-09-05 09:35:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 48,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16808014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakurazawa/pseuds/sakurazawa
Summary: 1929, a year and a half after the disaster at Pére Lachaise, and Tina Goldstein is at the end of her options. Haunted by dreams of Queenie, missing Newt, she’s searching for any action that might make a difference. But MACUSA has withdrawn all forces from Europe and refused further involvement in the hunt for Grindelwald, stymying her attempts to find her sister.Meanwhile, Newt is in Brazil, posing as a visiting scholar at Castelobruxo school and desperately distracted by thoughts of a certain salamander-eyed witch. In reality, he’s investigating the disappearance of several Auror spies working against the rising support for Grindelwald in Rio de Janeiro.When Tina reveals Queenie’s status as a Legillimens in a bid for help, she inadvertently makes her a targets of the European ministries. Horrified and furious, Tina quits her job and makes her way to London...only to find that Newt’s work has taken him to Brazil.Worried, desperate to see Newt, and willing to do anything that might bring her closer to finding Queenie, Tina heads to Rio.





	1. If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> This is my headcanon for what happens next in the franchise, based on clues JK has dropped to the cast or press (Rio, skipping years, Newt’s patronus being a spoiler), interviews with the cast, and costuming notes (becasue I’m a cosplayer, and Newt’s boots and watch strap are WWI military or very similar. I have theories).
> 
> I also wrote it because I know the next movie will skip several years and I’m terrified they will progress the Newtina relationship off screen and we will not get that payoff. (I don’t think they will, but...I was burned by Remus Lupin. And I love get-together fics.)
> 
> If you want my playlist for writing, you can find it on Spotify. It’s titled: Newt Scamander is Hufflebuff. Which is my current hashtag for everything and was very nearly the name of this fic. I am not a serious human being.

The congressional hall seethed with frustration. Dark robes and cloaked coats shifted on the far side of the chamber, where delegations from England, France, Russia, and Germany stood in mutual resolve. Over the last year and a half, Grindelwald’s supporters had grown, their demonstrations proliferating across continental Europe, infesting countries with uncertainty, and darkness. The delegates seemed unlikely to budge until Madame Picquery agreed to send MACUSA aurors to aid in suppression.

Tina Goldstein, a pike of stillness among the restlessly shifting ranks of aurors, silently hoped they’d win. She’d been itching to get back to Europe and pick up Grindelwald’s trail. The auror work in the states felt pointless, petty—mobsters and monsters and nothing that brought her anywhere closer to getting her sister back.

But the formidable President Picquery was implacable as a statue. She perched in her throne-like chair, noble in deep plum robes that glittered like occamy scales. Her command of the room was so effortless that it only took a wave to silence the Russian delegate’s speech.

“It’s not a question of misunderstanding, Ambassador Ostrovsky,” she said, addressing the pointy-bearded wizard whom she’d interrupted. “Our priorities are not the same, and explaining your points again will not change my mind: the American Wizarding community paid its dues in Europe with the last war. We don’t have the numbers or the money to afford conflicts that don’t touch our shores. We can’t involve ourselves in this Grindelwald business any further.”

Ostrovsky seemed to swell in frustration. He lifted a finger, prompting every Auror to go protectively tense.

“Grindelwald stood sheltered in your country—in your government—for months without discovery,” the Russian wizard growled. “The resources he gained while sheltered in your ranks are now aimed at witches and wizards abroad! Some might consider it their duty to-”

“Our duty is done,” Picquery said. “We captured Grindelwald. We held him successfully for six months. He would be rotting in a cell without a tongue if the European Ministries hadn’t insisted he pay for his crimes overseas. MACUSA will not bear responsibility for that.”

Actually, it had been Newt that captured Grindelwald, Tina thought. Newt and his Swooping Evil. But pointing that out would only get her ejected from the chamber, and she needed to watch what happened. Inexplicably, she felt as if her presence might somehow affect the outcome.

The aurors around her were all nodding and muttering agreements with the president. They didn’t want to take part in another war abroad. Many of them had fought in the last one, and though it had ended ten years before, none of them had forgotten. Not Abbott, with his left hand melted away. Not Prince, who attacked first and never bothered with questions or apologies. None of them wanted to go back to Europe.

Only Tina, standing among them and apart from them, was aching to cross the Atlantic.

She felt their attention these days, even if they never looked at her, never said, “we know your sister is at Grindelwald’s side.” Or, worse, “How did you let that happen?” She asked herself that daily, and never liked the answers.

Because she’d been too focused on her duties as a newly-reinstated Auror, and Queenie’s relationship with Jacob compromised that. Even if Tina had liked him, and even if he’d made Queenie so happy that looking at her was like trying to look at the sun—a little painful—she’d been too focused on its illegality, and the consequences if they were caught.

She’d had one too many dreams of losing her only family to that awful potion in MACUSA’s detention block. And she’d let it cut off her sister’s only source of support. Maybe if she’d known how much Queenie was willing to sacrifice, she’d have helped her. Saved up for tickets to England and sent them on a steamer across the sea…

If, if, if. She could drown in ‘if’s, and the only way to keep her head above them was to do something. Like go back to Paris, sniff out Grindelwald and his supporters, and yank Queenie back to safety. With the authority of MACUSA and all the ministries of Europe behind her—and with a certain magizoologist at her side—she had the insane idea that she could do it. If only Picquery would allow it.

And there it was, another if.

Tina pressed her fingers to her wand holster, reassuring herself with its familiar presence. She was armed. She was capable. She would do something, no matter the outcome of today’s meeting. And yet…

Her hand strayed upward to her mother’s locket, and the presence of something new tinkling against it. The pendant was a little sunburst the size of a no-maj dime, etched with a tiny sparrow. The minute ridges of its rays dug into her finger like an affectionate nip.

Newt’s face burst into clarity in her mind—that private smile, freckles like a million flakes of copper, and a keen gleam in those varicolored eyes. She was sure her memory had made him more beautiful—she’d always been an excellent witness—but she found it didn’t bother her. He didn’t have to be beautiful to anyone else.

The little pendant was Newt’s watch fob, given to her as a talisman of sorts after a desperate few moments at the harbor before her return to New York.

After the disaster at Pére Lachaise, she’d spent a month int he streets of Paris, fruitlessly hunting for evidence of Grindelwald’s location. Picquery’s order for all aurors to return to the states had plunged her into despair. She’d been almost catatonic at the thought of leaving Queenie behind in Europe. She’d gone to London. She’d needed to see Newt and Jacob. Needed to remind herself that, though the last of her family was gone, there were still people who cared. She wasn’t completely alone.

She’d spent most of the night sitting in the mooncalf enclosure, pretending she wasn’t a wreck, soft little bodies milling and huddling about her.

Newt had seen her off the next morning. In retrospect, he’d probably wanted to make sure she managed to get herself on the boat, because she’d been too glazed to trust with anything more complicated than a cup of tea. And she’d even let that get cold, which had seemed to vaguely horrify him.

He’d picked up her bag. He’d taken her elbow and apparrated them to an alcove at the Port of London Authority. He’d stepped out toward the quay. Several paces later, he’d stopped, realizing she hadn’t walked with him. He’d walked back.

After that…well, after that was a memory she could conjure with stunning accuracy. She’d poured over it time and time again, wearing it into her brain, keeping the details sharp and intense. It had given her something besides Queenie’s chronic absence to tease apart.

The call of that memory was strong. She found herself divorcing from the discussion at hand, drifting off into a fantasy where grief hadn’t intruded into the growing attachment between them, setting traps and drawing boundaries. A fantasy where she had time to appreciate, to linger. To be the brave one, if he couldn’t.

She had drifted an embarrassing distance into that fantasy when the French Ambassador’s voice startled her back.

“Surely, you ‘ave people ‘oo wish to fight,” the woman said. She was a perfectly-tailored package of glamorous efficiency. Handsome, dark-haired, and roughly half Tina’s height, Eugenie de la Couer charmed everyone into admiration or suspicion. Often both. Now, she gestured at the aurors standing opposite her in the chamber. “You should let zem fight if zey wish. People who ‘ave suffered a loss at the ‘ands of Grindelwald should be allowed zeir chance at justice, non?”

Madame Picquery’s eyes made a slow, unimpressed blink, but several of the aurors around Tina had tensed. She felt them cheating glances her way, sensed the almost imperceptible lean of bodies as people craned to see her face.

Then the French Delegate matched Tina’s gaze—a spell, finding its target.

“Madame Goldstein, is it not?” she said, though she obviously didn’t need that answered. “Surely you wish to discover what ‘as become of your sister?”

The hall went preternaturally silent, as if Ambassador de la Couer had vanished all the air. Tina couldn’t seem to fill her lungs or stop the words from swooping through her skull. It had been a year since the events in Paris, and the question hinted at everything she feared: what had become of Queenie…and what had Queenie become?

Even Madame Picquery turned to look at Tina now, her dark gaze holding equal measures of consideration and warning. Tina weighed the risk. Every part of her wanted to say ‘Yes, I want to go and find my sister’…every part except the single, trenchant need to hold on to Picquery’s respect.

She found herself wondering what Newt would do. Which was a simple answer: he would be recklessly honest. He would make the wrong decision for the right reasons, no matter who it upset. He wouldn’t even see it as a decision. She felt herself tipping toward him in her mind, drawn as she always was to the gravity of his presence, even imagined.

Queenie was her priority now. Queenie should have been her priority all along.

“Of course I want to go after her,” Tina breathed.

“Auror Goldstein understands the importance of keeping our people out of Europe,” Picquery said. “Had she not been on assignment there, the younger Miss Goldstein would not have followed and fallen under Grindelwald’s persuasion.”

Tina’s face went cold. “That’s true,” she said. “But Madam President,” and she forced herself to meet Picquery’s superior gaze, putting all her hope into her next words. “Shouldn’t we be trying to get our people home? Grindelwald will use them, and we can’t afford to-”

“Just how useful could a mediocre secretary from the wand registration department be to him?” Picquery asked, not unkindly.

Still, Tina bristled. Queenie was frivolous and giggly, but she was hardly mediocre. No one who’d watched her alter a dress or whip up a five-minute-feast would say so. No one who’d bought eight separate Occlumancy guides to keep her out would dare to even think it.

An idea glimmered into being, and Tina didn’t think. She spoke, breaking a promise of 24 years in one moment of desperation. “Because she’s an unregistered Legillimens.”

It felt like a betrayal, but Tina swallowed the guilt. She would rather see Queenie home and have both of them reprimanded for their silence than know her little sister was with Grindelwald, and he was pouring his poisoned rhetoric into her head.

The room burst into noise. Even Madam Picquery leaned forward, her expression stricken. Tina saw the swift calculations happening behind the president’s eyes, and felt her gut drop.

“A Legillimens in the control of Grindelwald,” the President of MACUSA said, carefully-harnessed horror and fury in her voice. There was a glint of sympathy there as well. Madam Picquery didn’t need to ask why Tina hadn’t given up her sister’s talent before; the sorts of expectations placed on a Legillimens in the ministry would have been difficult for Queenie to bear. She hadn’t been made for interrogations, or court proceedings, or spying.

But those were all the things she was probably doing for Grindelwald.

“You see, Madame President?” said Ambassador de la Couer. “It is impossible for our aurors to do anything in secret. Perhaps the younger Miss Goldstein will be persuaded to leave him by her sister.”

“Exactly,” Tina said, relief and hope pushing up her throat. “We can get her back.” The French Ambassador met her eyes with a small, kind smile. Tina’s heart lifted. Dare she hope?

“It would be foolish to think she could be converted,” Ostrovsky said. “A Legillimens supporter is a terrible development.”

“She is not his supporter!” Tina said. “Not like that. She wouldn’t hurt-”

“Aurors saw her cross that fire of her own accord, Miss Goldstein,” said the British ambassador. “Including our head Auror Theseus Scamander, and yourself.”

“She made a mistake!” Tina insisted, deflecting the brief moment of pain at the name Scamander. Panic shivered its feathers in her chest. “Queenie has probably already realized it. She’d never support him, not when he’s hurting people! I’m sure she’s trying to figure out a way to escape...”

The British delegate grimaced. “If she knows Grindelwald’s mind, and still she-”

“He is an accomplished Occlumens,” interrupted Madam Picquery, her eyes flicking quickly to Tina. There was a warning there—a warning to stay silent. “I doubt very much even a born Legillimens could penetrate Grindelwald’s mind.”

“Then she is ignorant of his true intent,” the Russian ambassador insisted, “and therefore even more dangerous.”

“What are you suggesting, Mr. Ostrovsky?” Madam Picquery said, a lilt of challenge in her voice. Tina held her breath, gut already plummeting.

The ambassador lifted his chin, pointed beard jutting. “Even if Auror Goldstein could convince her sister to return, one would be a fool to trust a Legillimens that refused to make her powers known. I believe we have no choice but to eliminate the younger miss Goldstein, for the sake of the Wizarding World.”


	2. One Sweet Letter From You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts of Tina intrude into Newt’s duties as a visiting scholar at Castelobruxo.

The only way to survive was to stay completely still.

The vipertooth was frightened, Newt could smell the the sulphur on her breath as her incendiary glands prepared the defensive jets of fire. And there, cutting through the rotten-egg stink, was the vipertooth’s famous venom—acrid, deadly, and glistening on the teeth inches from his cheek.

“You’re alright,” he said, voice low, crooning. “You’re alright. Remember me? Go on, get a good sniff.”

Her snout bumped his neck, and Newt felt a thrill shoot down his back. Wonder, and a healthy dose of respectful fear. It was incredible to be this close, to have the opportunity to earn back the dragon’s trust.

“Okay, okay,” he continued, staggering a bit as she butted her snout into his jaw, inhaling his scent over her tongue. Good—she was trying to identify him. The sensory cells on the roof of her mouth were far more accurate, but she wouldn’t use them if she felt threatened.

She snorted, and sparks spattered his face, little needles of pain. Newt didn’t let himself flinch. It would only scare her. Her tongue flicked out, and he felt the tension in his shoulders unspool.

“That’s right,” he said, slowly lifting a hand to her scaly throat. “Go on, get a good taste. You remember.”

A low, clacking sound issued from her gullet, and she jammed her snout into his chest. “Good girl. That’s right, that’s right,” he said, cupping her scaly neck as she continued to sniff and identify. The scent of sulphur was thinning, letting the usual smells of jungle creep back in.

“Yes, she remembers me,” he murmured, stroking her neck as the sniffs turned into dragonish nuzzles, her warning clacks winding into higher chirps of recognition.

“You weren’t certain?” called the man standing fifteen feet away. “You are a crazy man, Senhor Scamander. I am no longer certain you would be a good influence on my students.”

Newt barely heard him, so distracted was he by the increasing enthusiasm of the Peruvian Vipertooth’s greeting. She was closing her wings now, trying to scoop him against her with her neck. He laughed, “Okay, okay, you. Hello. Hello…”

He cast a glance at the Professor standing at the edge of the goat pen. A magical barrier gleamed between them, shimmering like a soap bubble. The faculty of Castelobruxo Escola para Magia had erected it around the vipertooth in the dead of night, when the screams of goats and Caipora war-cries had alerted them to danger. Expecting little more than a chupacabra, they’d been unprepared for the presence of a speedy, fifteen-foot dragon setting fire to the feed shed.

“I like to think my influence is for the better,” Newt said, thumbing over the scales behind her head. “Most people don’t have enough respect for creatures they think are frightening. They underestimate their intelligence and overestimate the effectiveness of spells. Vipertooth hide, you see—it’s highly resistant to most magic. That’s why—oof!”

The dragon had finally maneuvered him against her body, and now settled onto the little bowl-like nest she’d scratched into the mud of the goat enclosure. Newt’s legs buckled, and he found himself very suddenly pinned beneath soft folds of scaly abdominal skin.

“No. Theodora, no,” he wheezed, hands flapping uselessly at her sides as he tried to shove her off. “I’m not an egg. I know I’m smaller than you now, but—ow. I need to breathe, please. Er, Professor?” he said, waving a hand toward the man beyond the barrier. “Could you—the bladder, please. Toss it just there.” He pointed several feet from the nest.

“Didn’t you tell me it would anger her to-”

“That was when she had her teeth in my face. As she’s sitting on me now—”

“Claro, claro,” said the Professor. A moment later, a tanned hand appeared through the barrier and lobbed the leathery waterskin precisely where Newt had pointed. It landed with a wet thwack, and with a quick flick of Newt’s wand, the seams burst, spilling out a rush of flaming gore which.

Theodora’s muscles tensed, her senses gone alert to the treat.

“That’s it, lovely. Go get it. Go on.” And to his great relief, the dragon lifted her haunches, freeing him from the folds of scaly skin and wing-membrane. He sucked in a deep breath of humid jungle air.

A cough sounded from across the barrier. “What is it, Senhor Scamander?”

Newt allowed himself a moment to right his breathing before responding. “It’s a combination of goat entrails, flaming chilis, and firepig’s blood.” He squinted at the dragon’s back end, noting her distended silhouette, and the rather…swollen appearance of her cloacal vent.

“That explains it,” he said. He stuck his wand between his teeth and pressed his hands flat to the edge of the makeshift nest, heaving himself to his feet. As Theodora attacked the special snack, Newt approached her side, pressing his hands flat against her abdomen. “I think I know what the problem is,” he said, probing, noting shapes, gauging space and numbers. “Yes. She’s most definitely gravid. Well,” he sighed in satisfaction, pleased to have untangled at least one mystery. “At least now we know why she came to the goat enclosure.”

He patted her side and snatched up the satchel he’d discarded when she first approached him.

“We do?” Came the amused-sounding response form across the barrier. The goat enclosure was in a valley-like segment of jungle, the lip of which was several feet off the ground. Newt took this at a run, leaping up with easy energy.

Merlin’s beard, it felt amazing to be in the field again.

A firm hand caught his forearm, pulling him the rest of the way up and through the barrier. Newt met the other man’s eyes and grinned.

Professor Guerreiro of Castelobruxo school was half a head shorter than Newt and so absurdly handsome that Newt—who was admittedly rather oblivious to anything that didn’t have fur or scales—had actually noticed. He had the kind of dark, charming flair that Newt associated with wizards from Spain, Portugal, and the South American cultures, but he carried it off with a kind of warmth and ease that, apparently, disarmed even awkward magizoologists.

“Please, my friend, tell me what it is we know about our newest guest,” Guerriero said. “But tell me as we walk. I believe you may have lied to me about getting used to the smell…”

Newt gave a sheepish chuckle. It might have been a bit of a fib—the sulfur was one thing, but a person never really got used to the smell of Vipertooth venom. Behind them, a great flaming burp echoed, lighting up the jungle in brilliant purple flame.

Guerriero’s dark brows lifted. His grip, still on Newt’s forearm, tightened.

Newt coughed. “Er, the incendiary glands needed emptying, I expect. Or she’d get indigestion.”

The Professor’s grin was white and contagious. “We don’t want that,” he said.

“No,” Newt agreed, pleased at the other man’s apparent interest and concern for the dragon. “Not unless you want to deal with an extremely combustible scat situation.”

Guerriero’s dark eyes widened. Newt dropped his gaze, embarrassed. Possibly, that joke was too true to be funny.

“No matter,” said the Brazilian wizard. He clapped Newt’s shoulder several times and ushered him back to the jungle path, where a pair of furry Caipora watched, spears at their sides.

“The vipertooth,” he said. “You have discovered her reason for braving such danger as our defenses pose? She ate so few of the goats.”

“And purged half of what she ate,” Newt agreed. “Yes. You see, she’s gravid, and when that happens, there isn’t much room left for food. But she’ll be ravenous when it’s all over. And they usually seek out warm, moist soil, so you can see why the goat enclosure made for an ideal location.”

Newt brushed aside a long loop of vine, slightly jealous when Guerreiro strolled easily beneath it. Jungle terrains were definitely more accommodating to smaller statures. As it was, everything deadly was just about nose level for Newt. Not that he minded most of the time, but occasionally it would be nice to have the luxury of thinking and walking simultaneously without having to worry about strolling into a carnivorous fern.

But you’d be shorter than Tina.

The thought came unbidden, along with a rapid cascade of sensory memories. Her hair pressed into his cheek, dense and smooth, smelling like rain and the jasmine soap he’d noticed in her washroom. The soft skin of her cheek, making him feel clumsy and conscious of his own rough chin. Her narrowness and warmth, pressing against him, and the strength of her willowy arms sliding beneath his coat.

Professor Guerriero's hand clutched at his elbow, jerking him to the side. “Senhor!”

Newt snapped out of his thoughts, realizing he’d come within centimeters of treading on a spiny purple fungus. He staggered, catching himself on Guerriero’s shoulder with a quiet, “bugger!”

Guerriero chuckled, giving him another familiar pat on the back. “I see your mind is still with our scaly guest.”

Newt snatched at the excuse. “Yes. Just wondering how to reinforce the barrier and add in extra protections to keep out students and other predators.”

Guerriero frowned. “I thought you might decide to relocate her.”

Newt blinked at him, stunned. “No. She can’t be relocated now. That would—she could be stressed into early laying. That might kill her.”

“Laying. You mean she’s…” Guerriero’s expression was shocked. Newt felt his brows contract in confusion.

“Yes, as I’ve said, she’s gravid. Judging by the size of her abdomen and what I could feel of the egg dimensions, she’s also very near laying.”

The Brazilian professor shook his head. “I confess, I was hoping to understand that word without asking. Gravid; I haven’t encountered this word in English.”

“Oh,” Newt said. “Uh, pregnant. Usually for avians and reptiles, or anything that lays eggs. Sorry. Should have explained.”

Ahead of them, the jungle thinned until they came upon a massive, golden stone structure draped in glorious trailing vines and creeping flowers. Guerriero twitched his wand, and a sizzling gold opening dilated in the invisible barrier around the castle.

They stepped through, and Newt felt a grin drawing up his cheeks.

Castelobruxo was grand, a masterpiece of ancient architecture and magically-coaxed amenities. It’s structure was square and cake-like, floors stacked one atop the next with lines of stairs carved up the outsides. Now, as morning burned off the dense jungle mist, it appeared to be some giant golden bird nesting among the jungle green.

As Newt and Guerriero approached, a woman apparrated into step beside them. She was all hard edges and tightly-tamed hair, her robes severe but for the ranks of ruffled pockets at hip-level, from which Newt had observed her pull ingredients for her potions.

“Professora,” greeted Guerriero.

“What have you done with it?” she asked.

A mild puff of irritation seeped into Newt’s mind. Professora Remedía had made no secret of her desire for both a supply of venom, and first chance at the dragon’s remains, should it be exterminated. As Castelobruxo’s potions mistress, and a member of the International Sisterhood of Healers, she had significant enough clout to win any argument Newt might put up.

“Left her to nest,” he said testily. “She's about to lay a clutch of eggs, so she’ll be needing insulating materials. Straw. Stones. Things like that. And I know you want venom, but now would be an exceedingly stressful time to attempt any sort of extraction. Perhaps after she’s laid her clutch.”

“Eggs!” Remedía said. Her dark eyes were keen. “How many? Are they all healthy? I have a theory that the amniotic fluid in dragon eggs could-”

“Professora, please,” Guerriero interrupted, taking her gesticulating hand in his and giving it a kiss. She was considerably older, with several stripes of silver in her black hair, but she softened at the attention from Professor Guerriero. His dark eyes twinkled at her, and he tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and walked them on.

“It is my understanding from Senhor Scamander that the dragon is to be our guest for some time. I am sure he would be more than happy to tell you when the time is ideal for extraction, and to assist you. Might I beg an extension of your considerable patience?”

Newt glanced over awkwardly, biting at the inside of his lip. Not for the first time, he felt a bit flummoxed at the overtly familiar behavior. Had he not known Profesora Remedía to be married, he might have assumed them to be lovers, but then, just last week he’d witnessed Guerriero employ such flirtation to one of the animated maps in his office. It was possible the man had no other mode of operation. He’d certainly been pitched into the ‘hugger’ drawer in Newt’s mental catalog.

Profesora Remedía glanced past Guerriero to Newt and, in an action clearly intended to isolate him from the conversation, replied to her fellow professor in Portuguese.

Newt gave half a resigned sigh and stuffed both hands in his trouser pockets. They gained the castle’s sandstone entry, where he sent the pair of South American professors a perfunctory nod and veered off to the northeast stair. He climbed through tessellated passageways, their mosaics telling stories of ancient Brazilian witches and wizards until he arrived at the guest suite that had been his home for the past seven weeks.

Merlin’s beard, had it been seven weeks already? No wonder he was losing his attention to thoughts of Tina. It had been almost two months since he’d had a fresh letter, and something in his mind felt caged and anxious.

She’d managed to coax a little part of his attention away from his work, and that part had taken on a creature's personality in his head. Something demanding and needy, scratching at the wrinkles of his brain when he didn’t tend to it for too long. It’s diet was her handwriting, her words, the texture of paper liberated from MACUSA offices and steeped in the smells of her flat. It loved the little smudges of her fingerprints—she was absolutely addicted to newspapers—and purred when he matched his fingers to them.

For a year and a half there had been near-daily letters—the garret of his London brownstone was forever scattered with down and droppings from the pair of owls he’d adopted solely to cut the expense of postage. Thanks to royalties from his book, he hadn’t needed to worry about that, but a few perceptive questions from Jacob had reminded him that Tina was now paying for both her and Queenie’s share of rent.

It had seemed too intrusive to offer to pay postage for her, so he’d adopted owls from a friend of his mother’s. He’d just added a third to the rotation when he’d gotten the message from Dumbledore, the request that had sent him to Castelobruxo, as a Visiting Scholar, of all things.

And now the little beast was starving.

Newt tapped the mosaic bull on his doorway. It dug its hoof into the mosaic earth and snorted a challenge. Newt sighed. “Occamy Teapot,” he said. The bull wheeled, lowered its head, and charged the lock.

His door slid open with a fanfare from the little mosaic musicians, and Newt stepped inside.

The room was cozy with woven rugs and wall hangings, a comfortable writing desk, breakfast table, and a suitcase stand. A separate room housed what, to Newt, seemed an unnecessarily—perhaps even suggestively—large bed and, adjoining that, an equally large (and vastly more welcome) bathroom.

Everything had a pleasantly rustic quality that made it far easier to relax than the squashy opulence of Hogwarts. After years in a camp bed, whether in the field or at war, Newt found that he couldn’t quite relax if everything around him was too comfortable.

Castelobruxo’s herbologist had even managed to acquire him a little rosewood tree of wand quality for Pickett.

He was caught off guard by the presence of an owl on the branches of that miniature tree. It was a small, handsome speckled fellow that he instantly recognized from the owl post near his London brownstone.

“Hello, Ophelia,” he said, stretching out a hand. The little owl fluttered up onto his wrist, sidestepping rapidly up his forearm as he lifted her to eye-level. “Good flight? I expect it’s warm for you down here. I’ll get a basin for you in just a minute.” He stroked her breast feathers, smiling as she continued edging up his arm to his shoulder. At last, she arranged herself against his neck and puffed out her feathers, talons sinking through the thin weave of his shirt.

“Alright, there you go. Comfortable?” he said, disregarding the slight discomfort of sharp talons in his skin. It was worth it to feel the little form fluffing beneath his chin.

An angry chitter drew his attention back to the rosewood tree, where Pickett had emerged from a tiny hole, shaking his spindly fingers angrily at Ophelia.

“Now, Pickett,” Newt said, untying the roll of parchment from the owl’s leg. “No need for jealousy. Come on.” He held out his wrist, and Pickett sprang immediately onto it, spidering his way up to the opposite shoulder from Ophelia. She gave a disgruntled little shift and clicked her beak.

“Both of you settle down,” he said, affectionately stern, and unrolled the parchment to find Jacob’s beautiful penmanship.

Hey pal, how’s the jungle? I still don’t get what you mean by ‘retromingent’, but you could have warned me the erumpent pissed backwards. B had to dunk me in something that smelled like diesel and peaches. I don’t want to know.

Everyone downstairs is good. B says Noodle has a cold. Biff, Tiff, and Spiff got out again, but I don’t think anything important is missing. We checked the nest.

The recipe for that karpatka cake is on page 34 if you wanted it. You’re up to six owlets and I think you should probably send something back for their mother. Just a suggestion. From a friend.

J

Newt’s chest clenched. Six owlets—six letters from Tina. He’d told her he wouldn’t be able to respond, but she’d written anyway. He sighed, glancing at the writing desk. A ream of parchment intended for field journaling lay on it.

The pages detailed the minutia of his days in Brazil, sketches of the creatures he’d begun studying, little stories about the place and the people that might interest to someone who enjoyed reading.

What had started out as a field journal had quickly devolved into a long, direct letter to Tina. He wanted to tell her everything, to share every little wonder and frustration, to draw her next to him in imagination. He’d pressed a sprig of tiny purple blossoms and stuck it to the page with instructions to smell.

Jacob was right. He needed to write to Tina. Even if he couldn’t tell her the real reason for his visit to Brazil. Still, gapping that information felt a bit too much like lying, and he found himself frighteningly resistant to hiding things from her. It was almost better to tell her nothing than to tell her…not everything.

He tossed the parchment to the desk and withdrew a book from the muggle-worthy side of his case. It appeared to be little more than a compendium of magizoological terminology, but with a quick tap of his wand and a silent spell, the book stiffened and transformed into a gallery of magical photographs.

And there, on page 34, was Albus Dumbledore. He looked dapper as ever, that perennial twinkle preserved, even in ink.

“Hello, Dumbledore,” Newt said. “What have you got for me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Newt’s perspective might be one of the most fun to write. I also love how obliviously romantic he is. The little cream puff.


	3. If I Love Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina gets waylaid on her way from the ministry by an old flame with bad intentions.

It took less than a minute for Madam Picquery to order Tina from the meeting hall. By then, she was more than happy to leave. The doors crashed open at the flick of Tina’s wand, and her furious footsteps snapped hard and sharp on the polished floor. She angled for the lift.

She needed to get home. Pack. The rest of her things—their parents’ things, Queenie’s forgotten effluvia—would have to go into some kind of storage. It barely mattered anymore. None of it would matter at all if she couldn’t find Queenie.

Fury was a storm around her, and she hoped it took every ministry in existence and blasted them straight to that No-maj land of Oz.

“Hey, Tina. Tina! Wait.”

Irritation clawed at her back, and she kept walking. She didn’t want to speak to anyone right now, let alone the man rapidly catching up to her. However Achilles Tolliver hadn’t progressed up the ladder at MACUSA by letting people off the hook.

He caught her arm just as she pulled the call bell for the lift. Before he could turn her, she whirled, shook ooff his hand, and met that very familiar frustrated gaze.

Achilles was exactly her height, a fact that had annoyed him when they were dating, particularly since The shoes Queenie insisted Tina wear to dinner had always made her a little taller. He’d seemed to take that as a challenge.

He’d been aggressively debonair, and part of her hadn’t minded. She’d secretly liked feeling just a little bit girly, liked being treated the way men always automatically seemed to treat Queenie. Doors held, chairs pulled out, coats held. He’d made her feel desirable, too. But that… that was harder to think about. And right now, it didn’t matter.

The only think that mattered was the Ministries’ decision to hunt down and murder Queenie. Her sweet Queenie, who giggled at magazines and doted on anyone who hurt enough and stood still long enough to let her.

Tina pictured her dead, lying limp and blue-gray, hands folded. She imagined her lined up next to their parents’ in the morgue. It made her want to shred something. It made her want to scream.

“Get off of me, Achilles,” she said, jerking her arm free just as the lift arrived. Tina stepped in.

“Atrium,” she snapped. Then, feeling guilty, added an ungracious, “Please.” The goblin on duty gave her a nasty look, but her attention was taken by Achilles, who’d stepped into the lift behind her. Fury flared in her chest.

“What?” she demanded.

“Tina, come on—” Achilles said, reaching for her shoulders, his voice syrupy with comfort. She jerked away.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Tina,” he said, stepping in anyway until he caught her arms. He seemed not to care about their goblin observer. “Listen, kid, I’m sorry about your sister. I know it’s been hard for you.” Tina gave a bark of disbelieving laughter. “I also know things between us have slowed down and-”

“There’s nothing between us anymore, Achilles!” she said, jerking back her arms. “I don’t know how I can make it clearer to you.”

His grip didn’t break. And as the lift jerked into motion, he stepped yet closer, tilting his head back so the brim of his fedora didn’t shade the striking blue of his eyes. In the confines of the lift, he smelled like cologne and cigarettes, and Tina found herself inordinately tempted to sock him.

“Teenie,” he crooned. “Baby, come on. I told you. I know you need time after everything with your sister—I get it, that’s why I got the icy mitt. And I’m not askin’ for anything.” Hogwash. He was always asking for something. “All I wanted to say was that I’m here for youz, alright? If you need anything,” and he reached out to graze her shoulder, “anything at all-”

Tina batted his hand away, disgust rolling up her back.

She hadn’t broken it off with Achilles because of Queenie, but the auror didn’t seem to understand any reason for not wanting to date him besides personal tragedy. Certainly not a fumbling, magical creature-obsessed British wizard of a reason.

But it had been more than Newt, too. It had been his expectation. His grasping hands and swindler’s smile.

“Go chase yourself, Achilles,” she snapped. “I don’t need your kind of ‘comfort’.”

The goblin chuckled.

A flicker of annoyance passed through Achilles’s eyes. He masked it by looking down at the goblin. “Can it, Beezer.” When he returned his gaze to Tina, there was a satisfying measure of coldness.

“Listen, doll. Maybe you ain’t on the trolley yet, so let me spell it out for youz.”

“This should be good,” Beezer muttered.

“You can’t think everyone’s gonna throw themselves into danger to rescue your sister. She may be a choice bit of calico, but even a Legillimens ain’t worth much more to MACUSA than a killing curse, not when she’s been peachin’ for Grindelwald.” He stepped in, and Tina found herself too furious to move. Or think.

“When are you gonna face the facts, Teen—she made her choice. And you need to get clear on your own. Now, I’ll put in a good word, but I can’t promise Picquery won’t throw you out for insubordination. Again.”

It was several long moments before Tina could process the extent of her fury. The ministries of Europe were planning to murder her sister, and all he could do was use it as an angle to get her gratitude.

It was so outrageous, it was almost funny. She was cold. Smiling at him, a hysterical laugh bubbling up inside her.

“Wow, Tolliver,” she said. “It must have really snapped your wand when I dumped you.”

His expression twisted. “You didn’t dump me, you-”

“I did,” she said. “I told you I was done. Don’t you remember? I’m pretty sure I said it again in the auror’s department, when you tried to sneak your hand-”

“I was going for your back.”

“Well, that’s not what you grabbed.”

His swindler’s grin returned. “You’re a lot taller than most dames, Tina,” he said. “Easy mistake.”

Tina’s smile was cold. “Only if you’re so self-obsessed your eyes stop working.”

Beezer chuckled.

Tina read the intent in Achilles’s eyes an instant before he aimed a kick at the goblin porter. She stepped in, giving him a full-body shove that felt gloriously, uncomplicatedly righteous. He crashed backwards into he golden lift gate, which immediately opened, spilling him out onto the polished floor of the atrium.

“Don’t touch him, Achilles,” she snapped, stepping out of the elevator and drawing her wand in the same action. She leveled it at the Auror’s disbelieving blue eyes. “And don’t try to touch me again either. This is the last time I’ll say it. We’re done.”

She stepped around him, ignoring the stunned stares from the wizards and witches in the atrium.

“Yeah, well you were just a skirt, Goldstein!” Achilles called after her. “If I’d known you’d be that much of a blue nosed prude, I’d’ve scooped up your sister! Maybe that woulda kept her from skippin’ off with fuckin’ Grindelwald.”

Tina stopped. She could feel the satisfaction curling off Tolliver’s presence like smoke. Distantly, she knew it should have been humiliating to have the details of their intimacy shouted across a governmental building, and she was certain to cringe about it later. But for now, whe reached into her coat pocket and withdrew her MACUSA badge.

“From what Queenie told me,” Tina said, a wobble in her voice. “You tried.”

With a flick of her wand, she sent her badge zipping through the air. It hit him, just as he was rising from the floor, knocking his hat back.

“Consider that my resignation,” she said, and swept down the stairs, head high and angry and full of exultation and doubt.

As Tina gained the front steps, the rich tapestry of New York opened up—brick and concrete, trash and rats and cars and thousands of souls, all crammed together and breathing.

She’d go home. She’d pack. They’d be expecting her to leave the country, and Tina had no doubt Madam Picquery would revoke her travel license, so she’d have to find a portkey. To where? France. That was where she’d left off. But the French Ministry would be on the lookout for her there.

Her mind conjured up the image of a modest brownstone on a quiet residential street. It's entryway and living areas had been spartan, filled with what looked like castoffs from relatives and furniture bought secondhand. There had been no real decor—a single painting, a few photographs and news clippings—and the crockery was mismatched. Even the bedroom, which had been ceded to her for the single night she’d slept there, felt like an afterthought.

Newt’s world was in the basement menagerie below. And though she’d only been there once, she’d been inside the pocket-sized version within his case on enough occasions that the presence of creatures grunting and calling held a comforting appeal.

Maybe she would go to London, then. Once she was in the country, she could apparrate straight to Newt’s doorstep. She could see Jacob, who lived in the guest room. She could see Newt.

Her mind flashed again to that moment on the docks. His eyes had mirrored the intensity of her grief, both for the people they’d lost and for the bittersweet line it had drawn through the attachment still growing between them. She recalled the chill of his cheek when she’d kissed it, his near-invisible stubble catching against her lips.

London would be perfect. Her new goblin informant, Craglaw, would know how to get a portkey there. She’d have to pay for it, but…her mother’s opal eye brooch should be sufficient to cover even the most exorbitant sum.

And to get Queenie back. To get to Newt again. It would be worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya girl got it.
> 
> How much do you want to punch tolliver? Also, what do you think Tina’s patronus is?


	4. Ain’t Misbehavin’

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Newt is alarmingly adept at breaking and entering.

The night air was heavy with humidity and the fumes of magic-laced cigars. Newt, apparrating into the thick crowds beneath the ancient Arcos de Lapa aqueduct, was glad for the gaslight that cast the gallery of stone arches into shadow. The rua was packed with men and women, some magical and some not, but all determinedly making their way either into or out of the famous hotbed of bohemian life.

Newt timed his movements to the flare of trumpets in a nearby samba bar, thrusting himself into the crowd and through the arches, into the dirty cobbled streets of Lapa, in search of a man with a pure white marmoset.

It had taken some doing to shake the Castelobruxo professors wanting to pick his brain about Theodora. Normally, he could have talked about dragons until the jobberknoll sang, but he had a more important mission. And a soft spot for marmosets.

Fortunately, he’d done enough skiving off at Hogwarts to be an expert at avoiding teachers, even when he was technically one of their number. At least temporarily. He’d left the castle grounds undetected by anyone but the Caipora, whom he’d bribed into silence with a few shiny bits and bobs from the nifflers’ nest.

After five minutes of walking, the humidity pressed in around his neck like dragon’s breath, and his brown neckcloth was damp with sweat. Many of the locals wore only their shirtsleeves, and it had been tempting to copy them, but he needed the pockets. So on had gone waistcoat and jacket in their pale summer colors. He felt mildly ridiculous in pale cotton weave, like one of the wizard dandies at the hippogriff races his mother used to drag him to, but at least Pickett seemed to like the leafy print of his pink pocket-square.

People pressed in on all sides, many of them laughing or shouting above the music. Dancing couples spilled out of restaurants and into the streets, where they gyrated and kicked, heedless of the people making their way past. Side streets were packed with yet more bars and theaters, and the farther Newt strode toward his destination, the grubbier those establishments became.

The cobblestones gradually crowded into narrowing streets, where the washed out colors of buildings leaning toward each other in conspiracy. Gas lamps gave way to colored lanterns, and the samba rhythms of the brighter thoroughfares toppled into something a little darker. The people he passed were grubbier, and scents of magic-laced opium wafted above the pall of cigarette smoke.

His stomach twisted, and Newt found that his sweat had gone a bit cold. There was something familiar about these streets. Not that he’d been here before, but…it scratched at a memory at the back of his mind, something dangerous and buried.

Newt elected to breathe through his mouth. He skirted an establishment filled with drinking men and women, languidly draped across rickety furniture and paused at the next alley over to checked his map.

The little silver lines might have been mistaken for scars along the back of his hand. In fact, they were well hidden by the perennial scratches. Dumbledore’s directions pointed him on down this tiny, winding street, deeper into the seedy parts of Lapa. He blew out a breath, wondering not for the first time, what in Merlin’s name Dumbledore was thinking, sending him.

“Handsome man,” crooned a voice. Newt startled, looking down to find that one of the girls from the bar had prowled over, and was now looking him up and down. He eyes were dark, gleaming in the dim lantern light and her burgundy cotton dress bared a distressing amount of tanned décolletage. A good sneeze seemed likely to prompt disaster.

“You looking for somebody?” she asked.

Newt’s eyes snapped at once to the brick above her shoulder, heat creeping in around his ears. It was a moment before he could get his throat to comply with his brain’s command to make sounds.

“I—no. I mean, yes. A friend. I’m—”

She moved unexpectedly fast, blocking his egress from the alley with her body. She slid a small hand up his arm. “I’m your friend,” she said. Newt bristled in panic, taking a step backwards and treading on a loose bit of brick.

The girl followed. Her slim hands found his waist, one moving toward his watch-pocket. Newt caught that hand on instinct, a flash of worry for Pickett overtaking his manners.

“Sorry, no—” he said. “I don’t—that is, I’m not interested in-”

“You don’t like me?” She pressed closer, that upsetting wealth of chest flattening against his ribs. Startled, Newt recoiled into the building’s brick wall, catching at her wandering hands. He was almost certain she was a pickpocket rather than a prostitute, but that did not make her attentions any easier to handle.

“No. I mean, I don’t know—I’m sure you’re lovely. But I don’t want—I’m not after that kind of friend…” She twisted her wrist from his grip, hands flirting with his jacket lapels and then, horrifyingly, his trousers. Newt was inflamed with fear.

“You’re no married,” she said, and then she was against him once more, skirted thigh between his legs, pinning him to the wall. It was absurd—she was so tiny. Newt could overpower her easily, but he couldn’t figure out a way to shove her off without rough about it.

“No have that ring,” she said, hands going to around his back. “I’ll make you want to marry me.”

He caught her arms, the beginnings of anger seeping into his tone. “I’m sorry, I said no-”

The woman gave a sudden, sharp cry and leapt back, clutching her hand to her chest. Newt jumped, staring at her in shock. Then an angry chitter issued from his coat pocket and he looked down to see Pickett, thorny fingers raised in defense.

“Right,” he said, unable to hide his relief. “Sorry.” He darted past her, back into the thick of the crowd, embarrassment shuddering up his back. “Thanks, Pickett.”

As he sped past a raucous samba bar, Newt remembered why part of him recognized this place. It had been just like the shanty village in that Russian border town, where he’d been stationed in the latter part of the war.

After the disastrous attempt by the European Ministries to harness the literal fire-power of Ukrainian Iron Bellies, Newt had accepted reassignment to a small task force of specialists whose sole job was retrieving wounded or imprisoned Aurors from active zones. They had been some of the longest months of his life. And some of the worst. He’d taken the assignment because he’d known that, with his skills at tracking and improvisation, he might actually be able to help.

That pickpocket’s wandering hands had unearthed the memory he hated most. Newt cringed, taking a set of stairs at a jog, but couldn’t repress the memory.

He’d spent two days tracking an injured Auror named Maria Olshenka through the muddy detritus of a shelled out muggle town. Whale-like silhouettes of zeppelins still floated backlit against the clouded sky, the occasional rain of shells dropping from their bellies.

When he’d found Maria in the corner of an unstable stone shop, her leg had been missing and her gut opened by some arcane dark magic.

“Shh, I’ve got you. It’s okay. It’s okay,” he’d said, shoving his wand into his teeth. Her leg had already been cauterized, and later, he’d discovered three of her fingers the same way. She’d been tortured by magical amputation. Healed. Tortured. Healed. And after everything, she’d been slit open and left to die in the ruins of a muggle city.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he’d said. “Maria, look at me. Come on. I’ve got you.” At last, her eyes fixed on him. Gray, dull with pain, but alert. “I’ve got you,” he said, “I’m sterilizing the wound.” She was a creature like any other. He could do this. He could save her.

The whistle of a shell dropped in the distance, followed by a shudder.

Countercurse for the dark magic. Pack in dittany-soaked gauze, seal it all up for the leap…he could do this.

Newt slid his arm beneath her head, using his free hand to brush the hair back from her face. The bombs were dropping closer. The bricks were rattling and falling round them.

She wasn’t stable, but he couldn’t wait for that. Newt hunched protectively over her, giving her the most comforting smile he could manage. “I’ve got you, Maria. It’s alright. We’re going home. I’ve got you.”

He’d disapparated. An instant later, they slammed back into the reality of a blood-soaked medical tent, mediwizards and witches moving at a focused hustle, their robes spattered in red and green.

“Sparrow!" One of the mediwitches shouted. A young witch he’d heard called Pomfrey. She ducked in next to him, her eyes sharp, and shouted again. “Code sparrow! HEALERS.”

Newt had been with them every step, lifting, holding, adding his power to the spells. He’d held Maria’s face between his hands, smearing it with more scarlet grime as Mediwitch Pomfrey probed the woman’s heart, trying desperately to get it to take back a natural rhythm. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he’d said. Maria hadn’t taken her eyes off his, though she didn’t know who he was, she seemed to take strength from his presence. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re alright.”

“Scamander.” Pomfrey’s serious, exhausted voice. “She’s gone, Scamander.”

A gentle hand on his arm. “She’s gone.”

His fellow Sparrows had rallied. They didn’t understand their strange, creature-loving specialist, but every one of them had lost a retrieval. Every one of them had left that tent with blood on their hands, dizzy and angry and wracked with guilt.

They’d dragged him, mostly unwilling, into town and gotten him drunker than he’d ever been. They’d sent girls his way, and thought it was mostly a haze, he had a few vivid snippets of memory he wished he could erase. Memories of hands on him, a mouth on his. He had been clumsy, apologetic, but not unwilling—a fact that rather shamed him to think about.

By the next morning, he’d felt sick about the whole thing. Not because he’d ever been particularly squeamish about sex—he was a biologist, for Merlin’s sake, very little in the natural world shocked him. Even things with which he had little personal experience.

No, what had shamed him was the cheapening of his guilt and grief, the insistence that twenty minutes in a strange woman’s bed could divorce him from his need to mourn the life that had slipped away beneath his hands. And the worst of it was, he couldn’t remember his partner’s face so, in mind, she’d taken on the features of the Russian Auror. This disgusted him more than anything else, even if he understood that it was a subconscious connection, two different women conflated in the processing of trauma.

Pickett’s inquisitive trill brought him back to the present, and Newt found himself in a quieter street of jumbled residential buildings. Many of the lights were on, wireless radio playing muggle tunes in Portuguese, Spanish, and English.

__

_…I know for certain the one I love_  
_I’m through with flirtin’, it’s just you I’m thinkin’ of  
_Ain’t misbehavin’ - I’m savin’ all my love for you__

____

____

Newt looked down at the map on his hand to find a silvery arrow swiveling like a compass, pointing toward one of the stone staircases winding up the side of a building.

“Good job, Pick,” he said. What on earth would he do without that clever little bowtruckle? Nothing, probably. He’d be dead.

Newt glanced about, then withdrew his wand.

“Hominem revelio,” he whispered. Figures lit up beyond the windows—families eating dinner, a group of men playing cards, a young woman applying makeup. No one lurked in the shadows or watched from the roofs.

Newt slid his wand into his sleeve and crossed the street, climbing the white stone stairs at a crouch. Little tile stars had been embedded in the door, which was locked. Newt knocked, and waited.

No one stirred within. He hooked his hands in his pockets, glancing at the night blooming vines with their magenta trumpets. They had a subtle, sweet perfume that drew his mind irrevocably to Tina.

What would he have done if it had been her putting him against his wall…?

Every hair on stood on end, and Newt had to give a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. Best to shut that thought in a mental drawer for now and lock it. (No, not even just for now. Forever, unless she actually ever tried it, which—Merlin—was he even allowed to hope for that?)

Shut it down, Scamander. Lock the drawer.

Newt coughed and wiped his mind clean, refocusing on the door. Either there was no one home, or…

“Alohamora,” he said, tapping the lock. Nothing. “Aberto.” Nothing. Newt sighed. Why must all of Dumbledore’s friends be so damnably good at magic? No doubt, this whole flat was layered with defensive magic. He twitched open his breast pocket. “Pick, I need you.”

The bowtruckle was easy enough to convince. At the sight of a window box overflowing with a tangle of exotic magical plants, Pickett gave a happy squeal and climbed over to the sill.

“Can you tell if there’s anyone inside?”

The bowtruckle paused, pressing thorny finger to the glass. A moment later, he chirped a negative.

“Fantastic. Do you see-”

Picket screamed. A ball of white fluff had launched itself against the window from within, howling.

“Whoa, whoa, okay—” Newt said, catching Pickett’s frantic leap. “Okay, okay…”

He leaned out over the edge of the stair, trying to get a better look at the frantic albino marmoset pounding fists on the window.

“Calm down, calm down,” Newt said, instantly focused. “I’m coming.”

He legged up onto the stone railing and pulled himself on the shallow roof, edging toward the window. He flattened himself to the roof tiles and leaned over, meeting the glossy pink eyes of the albino marmoset.

It was thin, it’s little chest heaving in panic, fur patchy. It had been alone for some time. Starving. Trapped inside by the magic meant to keep others out.

A green and gold bead gleamed from the marmoset’s collar, and Newt peered at it closer. “Okay,” he said. “I’m coming.”

It was a matter of timing—vanish the glass, catch the marmoset, slip inside with the marmoset clutched to his chest and hoped the contact was enough to confer protection from the beast’s key-collar.

Fortunately, it did. He felt the slight shudder of magic as he penetrated the wards. The marmoset shivered against his chest, squeaking incessantly. Newt dug in his coat pocket and came up with a dried date, which he offered to the marmoset.

“Pickett, I’m developing a worrying knack for breaking and entering.” The bowtruckle chirped in agreement. “Well, I won’t tell Tina if you won’t.” Pick nodded.

Newt took in a deep breath, refocusing on his surroundings. The one-room flat was eclectic, with busts of ancient philosophers decorated in carnival masks, gold-leafed tree branches netting the ceiling, and a whole galaxy of crystals suspended at varying heights among the canopy. The flower of a potted succulents glowed pink as Newt stepped further into the room.

There were little golden half-cages studded about the room, some on stands, one perched by a writing desk, and yet another among the wilting greenery in the bathroom window. Trays with fruit pips and smears of dried juice sat about at regular intervals.

Newt recognized all the signs of a person who cared deeply for the creature under his care. Who considered him family. His fingers curled protectively around the trembling marmoset. “You’re okay,” he said. “You’re okay. Pop up here.” He deposited the creature on his shoulder, where it latched onto his neck, tiny fingers gripping his hair and shirt collar, crooning in soft mourning. A twist of grief hit Newt preemptively.

He knew, without having to investigate, that the marmoset’s owner was dead.

Still. The state of a tiny primate wasn’t going to convince the likes of Albus Dumbledore’s network. He needed proof.

“Vestigium appare.” He placed his lips to the end of his wand and blew, showering the flat in a golden dust. Residual magic took shape beneath the dust.

A middle-aged wizard, asleep on the silk-sheeted bed. For just a moment, he was peaceful, then-

The marmoset shrieked, and Newt had to catch him as he attempted the flee the sudden burst of motion from the spell.

The wizard had sat up, hand clawing at his neck, his face. He fought, hand scrambling for his wand. His movements grew frantic, then sluggish, until at last they stopped altogether. A moment later, his form softened, then dissolved.

Newt cradled the marmoset, which was now clinging to his thumb, whimpering.

“It’s alright,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “It’s alright.”

He glanced around, focusing on the writing desk. There had to be something here. Something he could take as proof. There, a bit of gleaming, silver-threaded paper poking through what appeared to be a solid gold typewriter.

“Well, Pick, I wouldn’t say our friend had the most casual of decorating styles. Let’s see what we’ve got here. Dumbledore said there would be something coded.”

He pulled the letter free and tapped it with his wand. “Revelio.”

Abruptly, a flyer blossomed across the page. A photograph of Grindelwald, his arms spread wide, below a headline in German. Newt squinted—his German was lousy, but he could glean enough from what words he knew to understand the sheet of propaganda.

Cold shivered over him—had this man truly been one of Dumbledore’s friends? Or had he been working with Grindelwald all along, exposing them. For a moment, Newt couldn’t quite breathe.

Then, from the corner of the page, what Newt had assumed to be an ornate framing conceit twisted into the form of a long-necked, long-tailed bird, turned its head to look at him, and winked.

A smash of glass in the street below startled Newt into action. Dogs—no, krups—barked and a string of loud laughter followed. Newt folded the page and slid it into his coat pocket, snapped up Pickett, and found the marmoset’s tiny golden leash, which he attached to its collar.

“All right, everyone,” he said, climbing into the frame of the window. “Let’s go.”

He leapt into the open night and disapparrated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY, so, you now have some of my War!Newt headcanons. I made up the Sparrows because of the little watch fob he wears on the WWI watch strap on his waistcoat. You can see it in the films, and if you zoom a high def picture, there’s a sparrow on it.
> 
> Helooooooo, headcanon.
> 
> Also, I have a theory that Newt is pretty chill about sex as a concept. Like, you don’t grow up with a mom who breeds hippogriffs and NOT understand that concept from the age of, like, four. Add to that the fact that he’s a scientist and a vet and, well...very unshocked.
> 
> Just...maybe not when it concerns personal experience and having any game whatsoever. #nogamescamander #negativegamescamander


	5. Dream a Little Dream of Me

Mama Antimony’s was the sort of place Tina would have loved to shut down if she hadn’t needed a new informant. Part speakeasy, part gambling den, the establishment served up liquor and entertainment to anyone with enough scratch to pay tribute to the club’s owner, Medea “Mama” Antimony.

She knew it was a brothel, too, but that particular menu of amenities had never been extended to Tina. The brothel aspect bothered her. Though her contact had assured her the girls were neither underage nor coerced, she’d found it hard to believe. Still, she’d been trying to pick her battles, and with Grindelwald’s supporters cropping up like wildfires, she’d forced herself to pretended she didn’t notice when a man disappeared with girl in a glittering dress.

Someday, maybe she could talk to those girls and make sure they really wanted to be there. Today, though, she couldn’t spare worry for anyone but Queenie.

“What’s in the suitcase, Goldstein?” said the porter. He’d let her into the little basement room—the subfloor of a massive building, its entrance only accessible through rat-infested train tunnels, where wizards and witches could apparrate to the front stoop without fear of being followed.

“Nothing that concerns you, Shanker,” she said. Her suitcase had everything in it she could fit. Thanks to an extendable charm, that was a good deal of her possessions—all the books, clothing, and family possessions. Everything, really, except the furniture. She’d even taken Queenie’s wireless.

She stepped into the smoke-hazed room, taking in the lay of the place. Black walls, velvet cushions, and glittering crystal were all jacketed in a layer of debaucherous grime. Half-trolls and hags studded the shadowy corners, and Tina noticed at least three members of Barker’s Hooligans casting dice at a back table. Waitresses slunk through the room like cats in sheer, sequin-studded dresses, and a slim girl with possible Veela blood danced in little but her long, silver-blonde hair and a few well-placed strings of beads.

“Hey! Who’s my favorite dame of the law!” The greasy voice came from behind the bar, where a dark-skinned half-goblin stood polishing martini glasses.

“Hi, Crag,” she said, slinging her suitcase and herself onto stools. Cragslaw was one of the most knowledgeable appraisers in the city, owing to both his half-goblin ancestry, fact-trapping mind, and wide network of racketeers, thieves, and fences. He was the guy you went to when you needed something. And he was one of Mama Antimony’s highest officers.

Fortunately, he also hated Gnarlak. And when Tina’s information had put the double-crosser away, Cragslaw had taken it as a personal favor and adopted her as his “pet Auror”. Tina had let him.

“What’s the case for, doll? Wizard troubles? You need a wand broken, baby, you let me know.”

“Happy to break wands myself,” she said, but couldn’t help the smile. He was a crook, but she couldn’t help the slight fondness she’d developed for the guy. When he decided he liked you, you were in.

She thought he probably would have gotten a kick out of Newt, though she couldn’t be sure the feeling would be mutual.

“What can I do for you’z?” He said. “Need me to fake you a new badge?”

Tina tried not to show her surprise. “What I need is a portkey to London. Can you make that happen?”

“It always depends, Miss Goldstein, on what you can make happen for Mama.” He flourished a hand at the portrait of a curvaceous black witch, who surveyed the goings-on at her club with imperial satisfaction.

Tina pulled a pearl and diamond hat pin from her pocket, warming him up to the idea of a bargain. The pin had belonged to Queenie—just one of the many gifts she’d received from boyfriends across the years.

“Fake,” Cragslaw said, grinning so his gold tooth caught the light. His deep skin glistened in the flicker of gaslight. “But you knew that. Come on, doll. Let’s lay it all on the table.”

They repeated the exercise with a pair of (real) emerald and mother-of-pearl cufflinks that had belonged to Tina’s father. The lunar scope she had inadvertently abducted from Newt during the Gnarlak fiasco, and at last, the dragon-eye brooch.

“Now the cauldron’s bubblin’,” he said. But his eyes had sharpened over the pyramid of martini glasses he was polishing, fastening with familiar greed on the pendant on her necklace. “Still wanna know what you’z got there. It’s platinum. Looks goblin made.”

“You say everything that’s nice looks goblin made,” Tina said, fist closing protectively around the locket and charm. “It’s not on the table.”

“You even know what it is?”

Tina didn’t. She hadn't had time to look at it when Newt had snapped it it off his watch strap, the boat’s final horn reverberating through the quay. He'd stuffed it straight into her pocket with a very Newt-like non-explanation of “Sorry, just…”

It hadn’t been until she was at the boat’s gunwale, tears cold in her eyes, that she remembered to pull it out. By then, it had been too late to ask.

Cragslaw’s hand reached out, and Tina frowned.

“I ain’t gonna take it from you’z,” he insisted. “Not now you’re dirty as I am. Only clean business between dirty peoples, yeah?”

She glared, but reluctantly slid the necklace chain over her head and handed it to Craglaw.

He studied it, half-goblin features keen.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. It’s the insignia for one of the Sparrow Units from the war,” he said.

Tina frowned, imagining wizards and witches, sending flocks of birds upon their enemies. Actually, that sounded alarmingly Newt-worthy, as weapons went.

“A sparrow unit?” she prompted.

Cragslaw glanced at her with some disappointment over having to explain. “The sparrows! They were trackers—located prisoners and ambushes over enemy lines, that kinda jazz. This one looks like it belonged to a wizard in the,” he turned it over, clawed fingernail probing at the etchings. “There it is—yeah, the Forty-Fifth. That'd be Eastern Front.”

Newt had mentioned being there. Working with dragons, and then…well, he hadn’t said much about what else he’d done.

“Lotta territory to cover,” Cragslaw went on. “Not enough manpower to do it. Lot of wizards went missing. Most of ‘em Russian.” He held it up to his eyes, peering closer. “Nice piece. It was made in a mold, but it's platinum, and it's got history. Probably worth somethin’.”

Tina barely heard him. For a moment, she was caught up imagining Newt at nineteen or twenty, crossing into dark wizard territory. He seemed an unlikely choice, given his reputation with the British ministry, but if it meant saving someone…hell, once the dragon-wrangling operation had folded, he’d probably volunteered.

She’d been thirteen when the war began, and only just out of Ilvermorny when it ended. She knew so little of what it had been like—only what she’d heard from those a few years older.

“Want me to fence it for you’z?”

The question caught Tina so off guard that she took a full beat to respond.

“No!” she hissed, reaching for the pendant. “I told you, it belongs to a friend.”

Craglaw held up his clawed hands in mock defense. “Sure, alright. Probably oughta put it back before your sweetheart knows it's missing.”

Tina gave him a hard smile. “I didn't take it,” she said, and then, with a bit more ache, “and he's not my sweetheart.”

Craglaw’s black eyes gleamed. His cackle was the pop of oil in a pan. “Whatever you say, doll.” He went back to polishing glasses. “But it’d be worth even more if it belongs to your British gent. What’s his name?” he asked, though he clearly didn’t need reminding. “Scamander?”

She clenched her fists. That was the problem with information brokers. They always knew more than you wanted.

“Can you get me the portkey or not?” she said.

“For the sparrow pendant, absolutely.”

“It’s not for-”

“For the opal-eye brooch. Well…” he looked at the ceiling of the speakeasy. “I’ll see what I can do. Till then, you better get in a back room and make yourself scarce. I smell Aurors.”

Tina went tense. “You…”

“Aurors. Probably here to look for you’z.” He tapped his stubby wand on the bartop, sending a segment of it swinging open. He waved her in. “Come on. Back there.”

He aimed his wand at the gleaming wall of liquor bottles behind him. A three-foot segment dropped into the floor, revealing a darkened passage beyond. Tina didn’t wait for a second invitation.

#

The back room was definitely where most of the real work happened at Mama Antimony’s. There were store rooms of coded boxes and wanted posters with scrawled notes of congratulations pinned up on the walls, and after a dizzying series of turns, she entered what had to be the brothel portion of the club.

It was a long, dark hallway with a series of twelve doors, each of which had a different rune carved into it. Tina glanced down at the witch leading the way. She was a young thing, maybe nineteen, with a slinky gait and perfectly coiffed hair in a deep,wine red color. She carried a long cigarette holder that might well have actually been her wand.

“You, uh…I guess…so do you like working here?” Tina ventured lamely. The girl shot her a cold look.

“What’s not to like?” she challenged, tapping one of the rune-scrawled doors with her cigarette holder. The rune shimmered, and the door unlocked beneath her hand. She shoved it open. “You’re in there. And stay quiet. Or don’t. There’s silencing spells on all the rooms. You know, for when we girls cry ourselves to sleep at night ‘cause we ain’t MACUSA.”

Tina winced. “No, I didn’t mean-”

“You know what, Toots? I don’t give a rattle. Or a shake.” She flicked her cigarette, dropping ash at Tina’s feet and glanced down he hall. “Now get in there. Some of us has real customers.”

Tina turned, but stopped just inside the doorway and performed an abrupt about-face. “Look,” she said, turning back around. “Everyone does what they have to. I just want to make sure nobody’s being forced.”

The girl blew out a stream of smoke, which curled itself into the shape of a prowling cat. “And what are you gonna do?”she said, that icy smile still on her lips. “Call MACUSA? Just get your ass in there and shut up,” she said.

As the girl walked away, Tina heard the distinct mutter of, “MACUSA bitch.”

Frustrated, upset, and not completely certain she ought to be doing any of this, Tina shut her door and tapped the lock.

The room was little more than a closet, with textured black and gold wall-paper and a collection of mercury-glass mirrors around a bed sized for two people who didn’t mind sleeping very, very close.

She sighed, waving her wand to dispel her street clothes and conjure her pajamas. But when she reached for her necklace, she paused. Maybe it would be better to leave that on. She only trusted Cragslaw about as far as she could toss him without magic.

She secured her suitcase, testing the latches a few times, just top hear the familiar spring-loaded shake of them opening. It reminder her of Newt.

Which was how she crawled into silken sheets, in a bed that had born witness to Deliverence-only-knew what kind of activities, thinking of Newt.

As she settled in, she fingered the little pendant, at last allowing herself to call up the memory.

Cold London Morning, the steamer horn blowing in the distance. Newt, realizing she hadn’t followed him from the alcove. Brows drawn, eyes focused on her shoes, he’d strode back to her. After a moment, he’d flicked his gaze up to meet hers, where it had arrested. Something about her expression must have jabbed at him, because he’d reached out, the smell of cold on his coat, and brushed back her hair.

It had been another mirror of another goodbye atanother harbor, and she’d found herself unable to do it. She’d seized the lapels of his jacket like two lifelines, holding herself above water as she stared at him, beyond emotion, and said, “I don’t want to go.”

“Don’t.”

His response had been so immediate, so sudden, that they’d both stared at each other in stunned silence for a long moment, wondering if he’d actually spoken.

She wasn’t sure who moved first, or if they moved in concert, but he stepped forward, she walked into him. Her arms slid around him beneath his coat, and the heat and fullness of him against her felt like the first real thing since that awful night at Pére Lachais.

Hugging Newt had been full of surprises, and not just the nifflers in his coat pocket. She been surprised by his hand on her neck, cradling her head against him; by the soft smoke of his voice in her ear, telling her everything was alright, that she was okay, that he had her; by believing him.

And on a different level—the one that always operated in the background of her mind, pulling together facts and observations from cases—she’d been shocked by just how much of him there was. Newt’s fumbling speech and closed posture had led her to attribute most of his visual mass to his coat. It has surprised her to find a solid, lean man beneath, though, in retrospect, it probably shouldn’t have. It took quite a bit of physicality to wrangle magical beasts. But she hadn’t done the arithmetic until her arms locked around his waist.

They’d felt empty ever since.

She’d ached, pulling herself away, and nothing had quite matched the feeling of holding him for the first (and only) time. In a different situation, she might have allowed herself to enjoy it more—there had been so much to fascinate her. But Queenie’s screams had echoed too loudly in her mind. At that moment, she'd needed him in a different way.

Tina sighed, flipping onto her side in the bed. She arranged the pillows, pulling one against her. Then another. She buried her face against the satin pillowcase and tried to imagine cotton and wool, warm skin and the surprising catch of stubble against her cheek.

He’d skipped shaving that morning. She hadn’t noticed until she was right up against him, until she had kissed his cheek. The sandy stubble had rubbed at her skin, and her mind logged and filed its presence for later exploration. She wasn’t sure why this detail preoccupied her so much, but her mind repeated it like a favorite song.

His cheek had been a shock of cold, despite the relatively short amount of time they’d spent in the dense fog. It was a contrast to his body, warm beneath his coat. She’d wondered what his skin would feel like warm, with the gentle friction of that invisible stubble.

Tina settled in, letting herself dream her way around that thought. In her mind, she kissed his jaw, parted her lips to taste his skin. She could tilt his head back and press in close, follow the roughness of it down the tendons in his throat until it gave way to smooth, warm skin and the strong tap of his pulse.

How would he react if she did that? How would he breathe, what sort of sounds might she elicit? He’d fumble a few words, definitely, but that would only encourage her. She could spend an hour just exploring the texture of stubble on his neck and jaw, finding what made him breathe out tension, or laugh, or tighten his hands on her waist.

Unless he didn’t want her to. The possibility sent her crashing back to the musty bed in Craglaw’s back room.

What if he didn’t care for her that way? Or what if he had, but in the year and a half since she’d seen him, his heart had shifted? But he crafted his letters to her with care. He’d sent two or three a week since she’d come home, and when he’d needed to be out of contact, he’d told her not to expect them for a while.

It had only been two months, and she had already lost confidence. Before, she’d been almost certain he felt what she did, that he would be both extremely flustered and adorably open to advances, but it was impossible not to worry.

She pinched the watch fob between her fingers. Oddly, the action of giving it to her was lost. Tina hadn’t seen it, but he must have tugged the pendant right off the military watch strap hooked to his waistcoat. She just remembered him shoving it into her hand with the vert Newt-ish non-explanation of “Sorry, just—”

She knew what he’d meant. He’d wanted to give her something to hold onto, but couldn’t explain why. He simply knew she’d needed it—a touchstone to remind her she wasn’t alone.

She clenched her fist around it now. Soon, she would be in London, and she could do something about Queenie. And maybe she could do something about this thing with Newt.

Tina closed her eyes. “I’ll be there soon,” she whispered.


	6. Chapter 6

Newt slipped back into Castelobruxo with a sleeping marmoset in his pocket and a hundred questions in his head. Dumbledore hadn’t given him a name for the marmoset’s owner and hadn’t said the man was working undercover, but the more Newt let his observations settle in his mind, the more they revealed. And the less Newt felt like he understood the full picture.

Not that he felt likely to get an explanation from Dumbledore. The man was infuriatingly closed-lipped about his plans. Which was irritating. With the exception of his “network”, he seemed to expect everyone to just trust him and do as he asked.

Of course, Newt did trust him. And he _was_ doing as Dumbledore asked. So really, what incentive was he giving the man to explain? It was grating, however, to feel like his former teacher didn’t extend him the same level of trust.

There were days when Newt felt like a billywig trapped in a web between two enormous acromantulae.

He turned the corner to his suite and stopped, startled to find the trim form of Professor Guerriero watching the mosaic bull buck its way around Newt’s door. He was dressed in a perfectly tailored off-white and yellow suit, a straw derby hat perched on his head. His wand had been given special prominence in a stitched leather holster on his hip.

Newt’s mind flashed to the broadsheet in his pocket. It would not look good for a member of staff to catch him with what appeared to be pro-Grindelwald propaganda. He kept his hands hooked into his pockets, refusing to draw attention to the area by patting it.

Hopefully, the marmoset would stay asleep as well. He hadn’t had time to cast a disillusionment charm on it just yet, and if anyone noticed the flat had been broken into, he didn’t want anyone to know he’d been inside.

Guerriero caught sight of him and his ridiculously-symmetrical face lit up. “Senhor Scamander!”he called. Newt saw that he was holding a decanter and two glasses. His heart sank—this was going to be a trick to get out of, and not least because he actually liked the easygoing professor.

Guerriero met him halfway, and Newt braced himself for the embarrassment of being hugged. The hug came and he was relieved when it ended quickly. He didn’t mind hugs most of the time, but very few outside relatives had ever tried to hug him. The most charming of them (aside from Tina) had been a twelve-year-old girl who’d written notes throughout her copy of his book and asked, very politely, if he liked hugs.

It had made the ordeal of that book signing worth it.

Guerriero held him at arm’s length, grinning. “I thought you might be needing an excuse to escape, but I see you managed on your own.” He dropped his hands and held up the bottle, which Newt could now see was cachaça—a sort of Brazilian rum.

“I’ve always been good at avoiding teachers,” he said. “Even now that I’m supposedly one of you.”

“Well, I told my fellow professors that you would take an early night, since you were awakened so early.”

Stunned, and a little touched by the thoughtfulness, Newt smiled. If only he didn’t have a report to make and a marmoset to settle, he might actually welcome a drink, and a chance to chat with the friendly professor. Guerriero’s subject was native magics of the Americas, which were both alien and fascinating to Newt. He wondered whether Tina had studied any of them at Ilvermorny.

Tina. He also needed to write to Tina. But where on earth did he begin?

“Thank you,” he said at last. “That’s very kind. I’d like to-” he gestured at the pair of tumblers, “-but I—er—I probably do need an early night. And I have a bit of writing to do first.”

Guerriero’s eyes gleamed with interest, and he leaned in. “Another book, Senhor?”

“Ah—no. Not as such. Not yet.”

The professor looked a touch disappointed, which was flattering. “I see,” he said. “I suppose you have decided on a topic for your article, then?”

The article. Bugger, he kept forgetting. He’d agreed to write an article on one of the beasts native to South America as one of the terms of his job as a visiting scholar.

“Er, yes,” he lied. “I may actually write about the Vipertooth. I don’t think anyone has observed their nesting behavior, which is just…” he shook his head, lost in momentary wonder. “It really is something. But I’ve got a letter to return and more research to compile before I’m ready to present anything so formal as an article.”

Professor Guerriero’s thick eyebrows lifted. “A letter. I see.” His expression turned sly. “I thought you might have a lover you left in England.”

Newt, who had been composing his report back to Jacob in his head, startled. “What?”

“There are times when your face, it has an expression. Like pain, but… Well, for some time, I have thought that you were in love.”

Newt felt a hysterical sort of giggle work its way up his throat. Love. Love didn’t quite seem to cover it. He was fascinated. Fond. Attached. Sick.

“No—” he said. “No, I’m not—we’re just—she’s…er…she’s American.” He paused. That was not an explanation. “North American.” No. “From New York.” Address the issue, Newt. “And not my lover.” That word. Lover. Just that word makes him feel ridiculous and shaky. “She’s just a…very good friend.”

Guerriero’s dark eyes managed to look simultaneously understanding and unconvinced. “You cannot hide from me, my friend. I teach teenagers—they are experts at longing. They can even do it when the person they are longing for is three feet away.” He hooked Newt’s arm and dragged him toward the door to his suite. “You do not wish to be merely friends with this woman. Come now, you cannot give me such a tantalizing taste of this story and leave my imagination to starve. Let’s have a drink. You can tell me how your great romance began.”

Newt laughed self-consciously. “I’d much rather talk about the vipertooth.”

Guerriero’s laugh erupted suddenly as a lightning crack, startling the marmoset. Newt, muttered a quiet silencing charm on his pocket.

“You British!” Guerriero chuckled. “So frightened of passion!”

“No,” Newt said. “Just me.”

Guerriero’s laughter was slowly replaced by a more serious expression, one with a painful amount of understanding in it. Newt realized he’d never heard the man speak of a wife, or a girlfriend.

“You seem a passionate man to me, Senhor Scamander,” he said. “Passionate about to your work. You have given it your heart for many years. This American must be quite the witch, to beguile it.”

“Beguile,” Newt repeated, dropping the uselessness of his pretense. “That sounds like she’s…somehow tricked me.” He swallowed, a tremble of anxiety in his stomach as he forced himself to add, “She hasn’t.”

“Forgive me. Shall we say she has won your heart instead?”

Newt gave a reluctant nod, though ‘won his heart’ seemed a blithe way to put the absolute catastrophe of words and pictures and impulses that fluttered through him when he thought of her.

Guerriero lifted the the glass tumblers in a shrug, and though Newt read a flicker of disappointment, he was relieved to see the Professor glance at the hallway.

“I see you have your mind far away tonight, Senhor. Please do not let me intrude. Perhaps another evening we can tell each other terrible tales of beautiful women.”

Newt coughed out a laugh. “Of course,” he said.

He couldn’t say why he waited until the professor’s footsteps faded before whispering his password to the bull. Precaution, answered a voice inside him.

He thought of Dumbledore, keeping the full map of his plans to himself, and gave a grim smile.

He was digging the marmoset from his pocket even as he stepped into the room. She was alert now, and unwilling to leave his hand for the rosewood tree, so he set her in his hair as he pulled off his jacket, removed the flyer, and peeled off his waistcoat.

His shirt was damp beneath his bracers, the cotton clinging to his stomach and back with unpleasant heat. He shucked the bracers off his shoulders and dragged the hem of his shirt free, allowing an groan of relief as cool, fresh air wafted in against his skin.

Pickett climbed from his jacket pocket, toting some little wooden bauble he’d clearly nicked from the flat, and headed for the rosewood tree.

“You’ve learned bad habits from the nifflers,” Newt scolded affectionately. “Have it, then. I don’t suppose it’s previous owner is in much of a state to mind.”

He cranked back his shoulders, feeling the pop of vertebrae. The marmoset climbed down to his shoulder, nesting in against his neck. He reached up, cupping a hand around her body and stroking her little head with his thumb.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “You’re alright now, though. Nothing is going to happen to you. You’re safe. You’re safe.” She made a few soft, mournful chirps. Newt pulled out the chair at his desk and sat.

The flyer had reverted to its initial form—the beginnings of an article on the crystalline structures of scrying globes. Newt considered having a few goes at the password, but rejected that idea. Knowing Dumbledore, any password would be both odd and exceedingly hard to guess.

So instead, Newt vanished the words of the article and, taking his cue from the author, decided to write his letter on the visible page.

He licked a quill—a bad habit, but a ritual he felt strange without performing—and dipped it in ink.

__

Jacob,

__

Retromingent means backwards-urinating. Sorry you got caught in the crossfire, so to speak. A 1:20 solution of murtlap essence and rokewood should sort residue and any rash. Tell B the brewing instructions are in my field notes from ‘23. At least, I think they are.

He glanced at the communication book now tucked in his case. This was always the tricky part—translating the results of his mission into the cover-narrative of fictional baking lessons.

__

Found the recipe. Uncertain success. I was able to find white sugar, but is the bicarbonate absolutely necessary?

He grinned, thinking of how Jacob’s face would go purple that question. The man had an inexplicable affinity for leavening agents.

__

I will figure out the owlets. Probably. Send Titania to me.

_  
-N_

_  
PS: Tell B I found Theodora. Have a handkerchief. (Two would not be excessive.)_

_  
PPS: To avoid future terminological catastrophe, check the back of Compendium of Magizoology (holding up left corner of desk). Horrible book. Excellent glossary._

He rolled up the parchment, adding a few additional incantations to the mix, and coaxed Ophelia into extending her leg. Moments later, she was winging her way into the gathering dark.

Newt watched her go, allowing himself a moment’s worry for her safety, and the safety of the message.

Then, before he could lose his nerve, he grabbed a fresh piece of parchment from the ream in his desk, licked his quill, and dated the top of the page.

18/9/1929

__

Dear Tina,

__

You may have heard about my assignment at Castelobruxo, but in case you haven’t, I’m here, and as a “visiting scholar” of all things. (I’m sure the title gave Theseus a good laugh. My marks were terrible, at least according to him. But Theseus was Head Boy, and I spent a third of every year in detention, so that’s hardly a wonder.)

That was no good. He couldn’t have her thinking he was a delinquent. Even if he rather had been. Although, given that she’d arrested him within the first five minutes of knowing him, she probably already had his number. But still, he’d never been in detention for anything horrible. Mostly skiving off to care for wounded grindylows, daydreaming in transfiguration, and making Prenderghast look like the ignorant git he really was.

Alright, and the occasional misguided—and terribly fun—caper with Leta.

But no. He couldn’t start it that way. He needed to address why he hadn’t been writing straight off. He crumpled the page and replaced it with a fresh one.

__

Dear Tina,

Bugger. Should he say ‘Dear’? He’d never really thought about it before, though he’d written it hundreds of times now. She was dear to him, but was it too common a thing to say? ‘Dearest’ was possibly too strong when they weren’t…unless they were. But were they?

No. Not ‘dearest’. It was too much of an assumption. Perhaps he could just say, ‘Tina’? Was less formal more intimate, or did it come off as brusque? He was definitely overthinking it. He’d used ‘Dear Tina’ the whole of their acquaintance. She’d written ‘Dear Newt’ and, on occasion, ‘Listen, you.’ He’d liked that. He’d liked the familiarity that came with the slight scolding tone. Merlin, he’d loved the idea of being just a little bit ‘in trouble’.

Fine. ‘Dear Tina’ it was.

18/9/29

__

Dear Tina,

__

I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written. Neotropical owls are loathe to deliver to colder climates, and Jacob still won’t put his hand in a fire, no matter how many times I’ve assured him the floo powder makes it safe, so I haven’t been able to work out a good way to get post out unless Jacob writes me first.

That was better. An explanation right off.

__

He said you’d written. I haven’t actually read any of the letters, though. I’m afraid any owl except my own have been diverted from delivering directly to me as a precaution—Jacob is keeping your letters for me, which

He stopped writing, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. He dipped his quill and lifted it, staring at the gleam of wet ink, deciding.

She had made a mess of his head. He wasn’t sure she would want to know it. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to know it. But maybe it was better to write it down. He’d have a few days before Titania got here—a few days to decide if he was brave enough to send it.

So he barreled on with the truth, or as much of it as he could find words for.

__

Which has been a sort of mental torture. I still want to know your analysis of the flying monkeys, and whether you think the author had seen a magical hybrid chimpanzee, or simply made it up. (It seems impossible to me that he got so much right without having some idea of the Wizarding world. Of course, as you said, he got enough hilariously wrong to have kept us in stitches to the tune of three months, so there’s that to consider.)

__

More than that, though, I hate not knowing how you are. I miss seeing your handwriting and the newsprint smudges. I always go back and check the papers from that date, guessing which headline made you pick them up.

__

I miss hearing your voice in my head when I read your letters. Sometimes, I imagine you sitting with me, looking pleased with yourself for making me laugh, or annoyed with me for adding ‘u’ to your silly colonial spellings, which I do for the express reason of being annoying. I haven’t analyzed this beyond the fact that I enjoy your the expression you make when you’re annoyed with me—the salamander eyes are quite intense.

__

It often feels like we didn’t actually part that day on the Thames, but continued on in a sort of spectral visitation. Your letters seemed to summon you into my office. Once, I think I even looked up, expecting to find you smirking at me from the examination table. I was disappointed to find you weren’t.

__

All that to say, not reading your letters means no more spectral Tinas giving me skeptical looks as I pen out an argument for Toto being the true hero of the narrative. (I know your rebuttal is in one of those letters, but I refuse to be convinced.)

__

And all of that to further say, I haven’t felt myself for six weeks. I’ve been surrounded by jungle and Caipora and dragons, by people who are interested in learning about them, and I find myself wishing I could apparrate back to London to get those letters, or better yet, back to New York, to see you in person. I did promise to deliver my book in person. I wasn’t able to, but maybe you’d like a second copy?

__

I’m terrible at summations. How does, ‘I miss you’ work? I find it inadequate, but words have never been my strength. Not unless I’m allowed to use words that get Jacob sprayed with erumpent urine. Which is a story perhaps he ought to tell you, as I have no doubt it will be funnier from him.

__

There’s too much to say. Too many small things I wanted to tell you. Too many big things that I can’t, but would anyway, it you were here. You always did see right through my fibs.

He put down his quill and leaned back in the chair, running his hands down his face with a groan. He definitely could not send that letter. It sagged under the weight of his most terrifying thoughts. Was it any wonder Professor Guerriero knew he was carrying a torch? The smoke from it was probably visible in New York.

The marmoset shifted, nestled her face into his neck, and murmured. Newt slid out his feet, resting the heels of his boots out ahead of him. He had to write her something.

He glanced at the field journal. In his mind, Tina had already been with him for weeks, learning about his thoughts and every small adventure. He’d conjured her a thousand times, sitting at the breakfast table, leaning against his desk, or fiddling with the vials and natural effluvia he’d collected. And sometimes, when he was too tired to bridle it, the little creature in his mind scuttled to his mental catalog and cracked the drawer labeled “Tina Thoughts You are Not Allowed.”

That was when he would feel her lean against his chair, and her narrow arms would move around his shoulders. The ghost of her lips warmed his cheek, just as they’d done on the quay. She’d smelled like mooncalf wool and the scouring soap he kept in his menagerie. And beneath that, she’d smelled like Tina—the human scent of her that he’d found on his bathrobe and the shirt she’d borrowed to sleep in.

That was a terrible one. The thought of her in his shirt. Sitting on the side of his bed. He could almost feel her waist in his hands, the delicate symmetry of her bones as she stepped into him, breathing against his cheek. His pulse would trip, and he’d probably say several wrong things before he found what he wanted to say. Maybe it would be about her laugh, and how it shocked through him like a thunderbird. Or maybe he’d tell her how he loved that she was tall. He did. Her cheek had felt soft as a puffskein, and with just the slightest turn of his head, he could trace the curves and valleys of her ear with his nose.

But it was not right to think of her this way, not without permission. Not even when his fingertips were tingling and the muscles in his neck had gone relaxed. She didn’t deserve the next places his mind and hands wanted to go, not even in his imagination.

He sighed and sat up straighter, eliciting a startled grunt from the marmoset. He looked at his field journal. It would be so much easier just to pick up where he’d already started and not hash out something new.

He picked up his quill, ignoring the cooling flush on his chest, and the less than subtle ache in his abdomen.

18/9/29

__

This morning, I was awakened to the death-screams of seven and a half goats. Tina, there is nothing like running through a jungle in pyjamas and combat boots, only to find fifteen feet of venomous, nesting dragon hissing at you from the milking shed.

__

It transpired that a Peruvian Vipertooth, heavy with eggs and desperate for proper nesting, had set her gizzard on the school’s goat enclosure and set about annexation, roasting any caprinid belligerent enough to get in its way. Which was most of them (see my note on the half-goat below).

__

Fortunately, this was not my first encounter with this vipertooth. You see, six years ago, I was visiting an expert in Argentina who had recently come upon a foundling nest. One of the little ones had been injured, so naturally I took her in…

He wrote for an hour or more, including a few notes about the city, the food, the colorful lanterns, and how the humid heat seemed to make everyone languid and unconcerned. He finished off the entry with a sketch of Theodora.

He brought the marmoset with him to bed, setting it on the unused second pillow. Better it occupy the space, lest his sleeping brain imagine a long, delicate figure with salamander’s eyes.

He took the coldest bath he could stand, which helped, and dressed in the same set of pajamas he’d lent Tina…which didn’t. Then he climbed into bed, almost wishing he’d spent the evening drinking with Professor Guerriero, and let the cachaça chase Tina’s image either into his arms or out of his head.


	7. Let ‘em Sell What They Are Selling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina runs into an unexpected new acquaintance at Newt’s home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super plotty chapter here guys, sorry. Also, sorry if there are typos. I have pneumonia and am on, like, all the drugs right now. Can’t feel my face. But it’s cool because DumbleDAMn in this chapter.

It took all of Tina’s patience not to apparrate straight onto the stoop of Newt’s London brownstone. The moment she breathed in her first lungful of thick English fog, her body came alive with new energy. She walked fast, flat-soled shoes on damp cobblestones, until she exited the alley where the portkey had taken her.

She didn’t recognize the street name, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t need to know where she was so much as where she was going, and now that she was inside the territory of the English Ministry of Magic, she could apparrate without being flagged.

She pictured the alcove two blocks down from Newt’s home and, with a pop, she was there, staggering over trash-bins, startling a cat that went streaking off into the quiet neighborhood with a yowl. Tina hissed, skipping backwards out of the trash and casting around to make sure no one had seen.

There was a bathroom window in the alley, two stories up. It was fogged with recent steam from a recent shower, but no one peeked their head out to investigate the noise. It was the middle of the morning, so most of the no-maj population on Newt’s street would be at work or school. Muted music came from one of the houses, and a little farther down, a dog barked.

It had probably been startled by the cat.

Tina hefted her suitcase a little higher and hurried out into the street, something like elation and terror building in her stomach. She tried to temper it—Newt wasn’t home. Or if he was, he wasn’t home long enough to return her letters. His final note to her had been scrawled on unfamiliar paper, and appeared in a plume of green flame on her kitchen table one evening.

Tina,

I’ll be out of contact, possibly for a while. I’m so sorry. Will write when able. Blame the usual suspect.

Newt

It had taken her a while to realize he’d meant she ought to blame Dumbledore, and not the nifflers. By the time she’d thought to write something back, the paper had curled into ash.

Tina mounted the steps and put her fingers to the lock, hoping it still remembered her. “Tina,” she whispered, hating that there was a bit of an uncertain shake to her fingers. There was a clatter as the lock turned over, and the doorknob moved beneath her hand. She stepped inside, careful of her case in the doorframe.

The first thing she noticed was the air. It didn’t smell like a place that had been shut up for long, and there was a lingering tickle of cinnamon that suggested recent baking. She moved the rest of the way into the house and let the door close behind her.

“Jacob?” she called. Then, with hope but no real expectation, “Newt?”

No one answered. She set down her bag by the stairs and shrugged out of her coat, hanging it on the stand by the door. Newt’s gray wool coat hung there, abandoned for the summer months. The peacock blue coat he’d worn when she met him had been given up for something subtler, once he’d discovered Ministry Aurors surveilling him. She missed the blue, but that gray coat was what she remembered drawing tight around her, held closed at the small of her back as she trembled, overwhelmed and grieving, in Newt’s arms.

She pressed her fingertips to the wool, running them down to the pocket. He’d carried a picture of her in this coat. She smoothed the lapel, wishing.

The changes to the townhome were minimal, as far as she could remember. A second chair had been installed in the parlor, wedged in between a the sofa and a china cabinet filled with emptied jars of marmalade. A spindly table beside it held a stack of no-maj newspapers and a a book, spread open across the arm. The Wizard of Oz.

Tina smiled, touching the cover. It was a different edition to the one Newt had sent her. He’d discovered the no-maj book after a conversation with Jacob had revealed it’s existence, read it, and promptly sent her a copy via owl.

Tina, this might be the most magnificent thing I’ve ever read. We can’t be friends if you don’t feel the same. Newt

And with that daunting inscription, she’d begun the tale. She’d written back to him after only four chapters, crying with laughter so she smeared the ink. Newt’s handwriting had gone shaky as he analyzed parts of the story, and she knew that he’d been giggling while writing to her.

But Newt wasn’t here, and Jacob must be at his new bakery. She glanced at the door to the menagerie, wondering if Bunty had clocked in for the day. She hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know the other woman, but—despite obvious distress over Newt’s attention to Tina—Bunty had been kind to her.

Tina remembered the warm hand on her shoulder. She’d been sitting in the mooncalf enclosure, her throat scraped raw from crying, when Bunty had crouched before her. “Come on, then,” the girl had said. “You need a cup of tea and a biscuit.”

Tina hadn’t wanted either. She hadn’t wanted to show her raw cheeks and swollen eyes to Jacob and Newt, but Bunty had cleared up the worst of her tear stains with a few prods of her wand and gently bullied Tina upstairs, where she’d plied her with hot tea and packaged cookies. Tina had crumbled the latter between her fingers—a small vengeance on the world—but the warm ceramic tea had felt good in her hands.

She hadn’t protested the splash of brandy Jacob had added, and clinked her mug to his bottle in a silent toast to their shared loss.

Newt had been silent and awkward across from her. She was glad when he didn’t say anything, gladder still when his boot had found hers beneath the kitchen table. Both of them were long-legged creatures, and she’d let her knee lean into his. It had almost been like a hug, and remained the longest extended period of physical contact between them.

Tina strode to the door of the menagerie and called down, but received no answer but inquisitive trills and chatter from the various creatures. Part of her felt like going down to check on them, but she wasn’t even sure what to check. Instead, she ventured upstairs, where Newt’s room and the guest room—Jacob’s now—stood on opposite sides of the landing.

She poked her head inside Newt’s and found it empty, the air still and a little stale.

Soft hoots and scratching alerted her to the presence of his owls in the attic. She took the second flight of stairs up to the little garret, which had been transformed into a wooded habitat for the owls. No cages and simple perches for Newt’s owls—no, they had trees and a carpeting of grass. Only the pigeon hole cubby by the window disrupted the sylvan scene.

She saw paper in the pigeon holes and crossed over, knowing before she tugged them out that they were her letters.

She’d known he hadn’t gotten them. Yet somehow, seeing them sitting here, unopened, made her chest feel hollow.

“Where are you?” she whispered.

That was when the door downstairs slammed.

Tina’s wand was in her hand in an instant. Maybe that was silly, but she’d been through too much to care how paranoid precaution made her.

Half crouching, she made her way silently from the attic to the second floor and peered down the stairs. Nothing. No damp footprints or new coat to tell her who had entered. It was probably Bunty, in which case, the sudden appearance of an armed Auror might frighten the poor woman half to death. But there was no sound of footsteps heading down to the basement, or rattling about the kitchen, or anything she might have expected from someone just arriving for work.

“I can appreciate the precaution, Miss Goldstein,” said an unfamiliar voice, “But the wand shouldn’t be necessary.”

Tina, who had nearly fired off a defensive curse in her surprise, gathered herself. The voice belonged to a male of roughly middle age, who had an accent that, while clearly some specimen of British, was not the same as Newt’s—there was something about the r’s.

Tina kept her wand pointed in the direction of that voice and sidestepped slowly down the stairs until she could see around the bannister wall.

A man whom she could describe as nothing but ‘dapper’ sat at the table, his hands folded neatly on the table. His auburn hair and beard were immaculately groomed and shot through with threads of gray. But it was his eyes that made her lower her wand—blue and twinkling with warmth and amusement.

She’d seen this man, but never spoken to him.

“Dumbledore,” she said, not sure if she should apologize for drawing her wand or threaten him into telling her where he’d sent Newt.

He seemed to sense her thoughts, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Miss Porpentina Goldstein, I presume,” he said. “Newt warned me you were fast with a wand.”

“Fast enough,” she said. “Want to tell me where he is?”

He chuckled at her lack of preamble and gestured to the chair. “Please, I imagine you’re famished after the last twenty-four hours. Riling up the International Confederation of Wizards is hungry work, even when not followed up with quitting the Ministry, packing up your home, and taking a transatlantic portkey to Whitechapel.”

Tina frowned and crossed her arms. “How do you know all that?”

He merely gestured at the chair, which pulled itself out for her. A kettle whistled on the stove and poured steaming water into an ugly brown teapot. “I’d offer you coffee,” he said, “but I fear it’s not a drink I ever learned to make.”

Tina hesitated. It felt good to stand here and glare at him—to blame someone for one of the difficulties in her life—but he was…disarming. And the way he looked at her held an oddly perceptive quality, as though he were measuring her potential, her essence, and fitting it into the schema in his head. There was also genuine interest there, and an extension of the warmth he felt for Newt.

That warmth was what made her sit down. Still, she couldn’t help it. Her need for answers made her loathe to dance around with small-talk. “I know you’ve sent him off somewhere,” she said.

“Ah, yes. ‘Blame the usual suspect’, were his exact words, I think.”

It took her a moment for logic to overcome disbelief. “It was you who sent the piece of paper,” she said. “With the note.”

“I didn’t want something traceable,” Dumbledore said, his eyes on the teapot pouring into mismatched cups. He conjured a plate of sandwiches, and Tina’s senses came alert to the smell of fresh bread.

“Is that…”

“Your friend Jacob is quite the baker. And given what the kitchens at Hogwarts are able to produce, that is a well-earned compliment.”

Tina frowned at the plate, not missing the fact that he hadn’t answered a single one of her questions. At last, he seemed to take pity, placing his hands on the table and leaning forward.

“Newt has accepted a six-month position as a Visiting Scholar at Castelobruxo in Brazil,courtesy the International Confederation of Wizards,” Dumbledore said.

“Brazil?” Tina said. No wonder he’d left his coat. She lifted her teacup, more to feel the warm ceramic than to actually take a sip. Tina fixed Dumbledore with a suspicious look. “And what’s he doing there for you?”

Several sandwiches marched themselves onto her plate.

“I have a few friends in South America,” Dumbledore began. “Some of whom cannot be seen speaking to me or any of my known associates.”

“I’d say Newt is a known associate.”

“Indeed, which is why it’s fortunate the invitation came from within Castelobruxo.”

Tina leaned back in her chair. “Do you really expect me to believe Newt just happened to get invitation to research at a school in the same country where you needed a spy?”

“A spy!” Dumbledore’s laugh sounded delighted. “I would never ask him to perform a task that relied upon one’s ability to lie. Newt has many talents, but duplicity is not among them. If you’d ever seen him try to explain missing assignments-”

“An investigator, then,” Tina said, not letting him stray from the point. “Operative, agent, set-of-eyes—whatever you want to call it. I don’t believe it was just a happy coincidence he got that invite.”

Dumledore’s smile was shrewd over his cup of tea. He crossed his legs and leaned in, studying her face for reaction.

“After the last war, many dark wizards who feared repercussion sought refuge in the political neutrality of South America, where they’d held properties for decades. It doesn’t take much to convince a person whose been banished from his home that he has been wronged, and for some of these disenfranchised communities, Grindelwald’s message is alluring. He promises them power, shows them a world in which the things they believe are righteous and just—the only path to true peace.”

“Through subjugation,” Tina said. “Which isn’t peace.”

“I don’t believe Grindelwald has ever conflated peace with freedom,” Dumbledore said, his voice almost distant as he contemplated the surface of his tea.

“And you wanted Newt to do what?” Tina asked. “Figure out who these people are?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Dumbledore said. “I already have, as you put it, eyes and ears in South America. Friends, who are capable of posing as supporters to Grindelwald. The problem is…” and there was a tightening around his eyes, something like frustration. “The problem is, some of them have stopped their planned communications. A cursory look suggests disappearance—abduction, or murder. But how they are being discovered as spies, and what is happening to them—this I need to find out.”

Tina frowned, sipping her tea at last. It was full-bodied and dark, and almost made up for not being coffee.

“Newt is excellent at finding missing persons,” Dumbledore said. “It was-”

“His specialization in the war,” Tina finished, her hand going to her necklace. “As a Sparrow.”

Dumbledore’s eyes followed her hand and arrested on the sight of the platinum pendant. “Indeed,” he said, a gleam of shrewdness casting his face into something that was either malevolence or mischief. “But it was his use of creatures, which are all but undetectable to most wizards, that makes him truly valuable here. You see, I have a suspicion that members of my network are being uncovered by an uncommonly powerful Legillimens.”

Tina’s tea sloshed over the rim of the cup.

“What…did you say?”

Dumbledore didn’t reply, seeming to know it wasn’t necessary.

“You think Queenie is there, in Brazil, finding your spies inside Grindelwald’s forces?”

“I think it’s likely,” he said. Dumbledore’s voice was sympathetic, but firm—he didn’t sugar-coat it, which Tina appreciated. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the sadness around the corners of his eyes, though, because her chest was beginning to ache.

She set down her tea, lifting one ceramic-heated hand to her face. She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, fighting back the urge to scream.

“Why didn’t…” she began, then looked up. “Did you know? About Queenie being a Legillimens?”

Dumbledore sighed, looking down at the plate of uneaten sandwiches. “Not until yesterday. I suspected there was something about her that Newt wasn’t telling me, but I thought, perhaps she hadn’t got on with one of his creatures. When I heard she was a Legillimens, his hesitation made sense.”

Tina swallowed. “I thought he seemed to like her.”

“I get the sense that he did. But you must understand that to Newt—who, open as he is in many ways, is a very private man—the nonconsensual reading of his thoughts would be the worst kind of invasion. He does not expect to be understood or accepted in the way he accepts others, nor has that been his experience.”

Tina couldn’t say why this hurt, thinking that there had been a rift there, however small, which she’d never seen. That Newt could have resented Queenie in some small way, and she in turn could have hurt him without intending it.

Perhaps it was naive to think the people she loved would love each other just as much. And perhaps she was overblowing the intensity of that conflict—he’d clearly forgiven Queenie.

Still, Tina was horrified to find her lip spasming and her eyes brimming with tears. She pressed her fingers into her forehead, shielding her eyes from Dumbledore as much as she could.

Why couldn’t everything just be okay again? She could have Queenie back, and they could be here with Jacob and Newt, just the four of them.

“Miss Goldstein-”

“Don’t,” she said thickly, holding up a hand to stall him. “Don’t. Just…tell my why you’re telling me all this. What is it you want me to do.”

She looked up in time to see the pain vanishing behind a schooled expression. He looked at the ceiling and sighed. And maybe it was because she felt so alone herself, but Tina heard the intensity of the loneliness in that small sound.

And suddenly, she felt as though she understood something about him. He was, in many ways, as much of an outsider as she had ever felt, or Newt. What set him apart was his mind.

“It must be tough,” she said quietly, voice still a bit damp. “Being so much smarter than everyone else.” He stared at the middle-distance, brows drawn, unhappy but considering. “It doesn’t matter how much you care about someone, does it? Not when they’re a crucial piece of the puzzle only you know how to solve.”

Dumbledore’s eyes turned their focus slowly to her. For several beats he just looked at her, reading. Then, as if in challenge, or acknowledgement, he pressed his lips and said, “Tell me, then, Miss Goldstein. Where do you belong?”

“Easy,” she said. “Someone is going to have to make sure Newt doesn’t get himself killed. And someone will need to be bait for Queenie, so we can get her back before the Ministries of Europe and America kill her.”


	8. Bidin’ My Time

Newt was not meant to be a lecturer. At first, he’d feared that the faculty at Castelobruxo would expect him to stand at the front of a room and hold forth on hippocampi or dragons in a fashion interesting to someone who was…well, not Newt. He’d worried his book might have given them the idea that he spoke as well as he wrote, which was laughably untrue.

Fortunately, his suggestion to hold the first of his “presentations” in the jungle had been approved by the faculty. Unfortunately, he was still thirty feet up a tree, wrestling with a three-foot slug when they arrived. He’d gotten the thing pried off the tree without it threatening to ignite, but it had insisted on winding completely around his left arm, rendering it useless for they climb down. He was trying to encourage it onto his shoulders when he heard them tromping through the foliage below.

“Senhor Scamander?

“Er, up here Professors,” he’d called. “I’ll be with you in just a moment, if…there you are, just, come on—a little higher. I just need to use that hand. There you go.” At last, the fire slug shifted above his elbow and he could actually grip the tree limb.

He made his way down the tree carefully, fingers digging into the spongy crumble of bark, aware of the multitudes of other creatures—magical and not—he was likely to encounter along the way.

“Senhor, are we to conduct this lesson in the trees?” A voice he recognized as Profesor Guerriero’s called up.

“No, I’m coming,” Newt said. “But I’ll have to ask you not to make any sudden noises.” He glanced down, feeling a slight lurch of nerves as he saw the little sea of faces peering up at him. “She’s not dangerous unless she feels threatened, at which point she lights up the mucous secretions across her body and this becomes a very short presentation.”

There was silence as he descended the last few meters.

At the sight of the three-foot red and brown slug suctioned to Newt’s arm, Processor Guerriero jerked backwards with a quiet exclamation. Newt gave the crowd an uncertain grin, hoping politeness might save him where eloquence failed.

“Hello,” he said.

“Professor, o que é isso?”one of the children said to Guerriero. A few others behind him were pulling faces and backing away.

“Bruto!”

“Porque é viscoso?!”

“Now wait, wait,” Newt said, recognizing the disgust on their faces if not the words. “I know she seems unusual to you now, but give her a fair chance and she’ll change your mind.”

A female professor turned to the students, translating for those who spoke no English.

“I…am interested to know why you’ve chosen a…” Professor Guerriero milled his hand in the air toward the slug.

“Fire slug,” Newt said.

Guerriero’s eyes widened. “It isn’t.”

“It is,” Newt said. “They’re quite shy, but I noticed her trails the other night. You see,” he walked backwards, indicating the translucent ribbon down the tree he’d just descended. “It’s slightly iridescent, but you’ll only notice blues and purples—it’s how you can differentiate their trails from the crystal snail, which shows a fuller spectrum of iridescence.”

Translations were happening, some of the students were moving back, and none were moving forward. Newt felt a little tug of sadness on the slug’s behalf.

“Come on, girl,” he said, unwinding her from his arm and neck. He felt the coolness of air against now-slimy skin on the back of his neck. “Come on, there you go,” he shifted her to his arms, holding her up to eye-level and giving her a slight shift so the light caught the blue gleam on her skin. “You’ll never find more than one Fire Slug at a time—they reproduce asexually and lay three to five eggs in a clutch, as she has done. Normally, they set fire to the clutch and camp in the flames until hatching, but I managed to convince her to come down with me for a visit beforehand.”

“Can we climb up and see?” asked a young girl, clearly proficient in English.

Newt glanced up the tree, calculating height and the logistics of getting fifty thirteen-year-olds near a clutch of eggs without the mother bursting into protective flame.

“No, no, it is too dangerous,” said Professor Remedía, her dark hair gleaming as she shook her head. “You could fall. Best to leave it to professionals like Senhor Scamander.”

Newt, who hadn’t yet considered the danger to the students, snapped his mouth shut. “Er, right—you will be able to see the clutch burning here from the ground.”

“Can you make her go on fire?” asked a boy.

“Probably not the wisest choice, given that I’m up to my collar in flammable mucus,” Newt responded. “And with few exceptions, she ignites as a defensive response. That means I would have to scare her, or hurt her. Right now, she trusts me, but if I tried to provoke her defenses, she could easily rescind that trust and…well. When they get really scared, they ignite the incendiary glands in their guts and boom. Flaming slug bits everywhere. And probably bits of whoever was holding her at the time. Do you want to hold her?”

He stepped forward, holding the slug out to the boy, whose eyes widened in horror. “No, no—I don’t. I-” He squeaked, even as Newt caught his hand.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Newt said, gently drawing the boy’s hand to the fire-slug’s slick side. “Come on, it’s not bad.”

The boy groaned, but let his palm flatten to her side. “Ew! Why is she warm?”

Newt shifted the fire slug’s weight, settling her in the boy’s arms. The boy grimaced, then laughed—half afraid—as the beast frilled her foot fringe, groping for purchase on his skinny shoulder. “There you go. And she’s warm because her blood is actually on fire.”

Enormous brown eyes looked back. “Right now?”

“Yes. Try not to drop her.”

The remainder of the presentation was chaotic, but sort of fun. About a third of the students braved at least a touch of the fire slug, and all of them stayed to watch as he returned her to her clutch in the trees. He was halfway down when she ignited her eggs, eliciting an amazed cry from the students below.

He descended the burning tree in rapid jumps, scoring his palm a bit on a branch.

“Now, that will burn for about fifteen hours. When it’s done, the eggs will be encased in a blue, crystalline structure that protects and warms them until hatching.”

“This crystal can be harvested,” Professor Remedía added. Then, off Newt’s look, she added, “After hatching, of course. In potions, we use it to combat magically-induced hypothermia, burn off fevers, and increase the heart rate.”

“I’ve also heard of it used in love potions,” Guerriero said, causing several of the older girls in the class to giggle. “An aphrodisiac, if I am unmistaken.”

Newt winced. Blue Salt, as it was known, had achieved a reputation as a “mostly-harmless” party drug during his years at Hogwarts. Added to drinks, it created an almost-imperceptible blue-green shimmer and served to lower inhibitions and increase desire. Which was fine, if you knew you were taking it, and wanted to. But in his experience, it was mostly used on the sly to encourage a partner’s willingness, and he’d never been able to see that as anything but rape.

Leta had drunk some once. Newt had broken the first and second knuckle on his left hand punching the Slytherin seventh-year who’d given it to her. It had been his first and only fight. Theseus—then Head Boy—had been both furious and strangely proud.

“At least you care about something other than those damn snails. Just don’t do it again.” He’d hesitated on his way out of the hospital wing, turned, and strode back with the hint of a smile. “If you’ve got to do it again, next time, make a fist like this.” He’d curled the fingers of Newt’s right hand into a proper fist. “And hit him hard enough to knock him out. You’re too scrawny to win if someone like Menelaus Rook get the chance to hit back.”

Brotherly wisdom, as it was.

“It’s also capable of inducing murderous rage,” Newt said, uncomfortable with the way some of the girls were eying their much older professor. “And bouts of flaming gas.”

“Such is love,” Guerriero said, to further giggles which, this time, Newt joined.

He stopped by the Vipertooth enclosure to see Theodora before heading back to the castle. She was interested in the vials of fire slug mucus in is jacket, but didn’t try to eat, seeming content to wait until after laying her eggs to break her pregnancy fast.

Then it was back to the castle and his room, where the albino marmoset—now disillusioned to appear a more common gray—hooted in greeting from a branch above the doorway. A second hoot had him striding across the room to the window.

Titania perched on the strongest branch of the rosewood tree, a thick parcel attached to her leg. Newt’s heart jumped into his throat as he stroked the owl’s chest, praising her for the quick flight even as he untied the parcel and, one handed, tore open the protective paper.

A packet of letters, tied in string. Atop that, two additional sheets of parchment. The first had been folded into a two-dimensional origami phoenix. The second was simply folded in half, its crease sharpened.

His heart kicked. Of the small number of people who ever wrote to him, only Tina sharpened her creases. He snatched the half-page and read it avidly.

_You’ve got some catch-up reading to do. Don’t write back. You can tell me I’m right about Toto when I see you. Tina x_

He poured over the words, dissecting the punctuation, the slant of her handwriting, the fact that she’d ended the letter with a kiss (which she always did, but he never could help placing extra significance on it). What did she mean, “don’t write back” and “when I see you”? Together, they seemed to indicate that she would see him soon.

In fact, the note itself seemed not to have been sealed in an envelope and sent across the Atlantic. No, this was parchment from his flat. He held the page to his nose and sniffed, scenting the ink. Yes, that was his ink—the tough kind that held through marshes and rain and wouldn’t run on the pages of his field journals. He used it for letters as well.

Which meant that Tina was at his home, not in New York. Which meant that something big had happened.

His eyes darted to the origami phoenix, which had flown up to perch on the rosewood tree. Pickett poked his head from the knot where he’d been sleeping, curious.

Newt drew his wand and tapped the phoenix. “Wooly socks.”

Possibly the strangest password he’d uttered since leaving Hogwarts, but it did the trick. The phoenix gave a small cry and a little theatrical whoosh of flame as it unfolded itself and hung, midair, in front of Newt’s nose.

The marmoset leapt lightly from her branch to his shoulder, clinging to his ear as she seemed to peer at the letter with him.

__

Newt,

  
_I am sorry, though not surprised, at the confirmation of my contact’s fate. I trust I need not beg you to assume care of his tiny companion. She responds to the name ‘Fig’._

  
_You will already have read the note from the formidable Miss Goldstein_

Newt grimaced, a bit embarrassed that Dumbledore, having never even seen them in a room together, had understood the intensity of Newt’s infatuation. And ‘formidable’? Merlin. What had Tina said to him?

_…the formidable Miss Goldstein, who—having left the service of MACUSA—_

“What…?” Newt said it aloud, barely willing to believe it. Tina had left MACUSA? She’d quit her job as an auror. What the hell had prompted that? Worry fluttered in his stomach as he read on, not daring to guess.

_—has volunteered to investigate the circumstances surrounding these disappearances. I have cause to believe there is a powerful Legillimens at work among Grindelwald’s South American recruiters, and the significance of Miss Goldstein’s relationship to a similar individual has prepared her mind adequately against invasion. Should these individuals be one and the same, I believe she also wishes to be in place as a means to draw out the Legillimens and, perhaps, return her to our side._

Newt frowned, a tug of protective anger in his chest. Thus far, Tina had been free from the web of Dumbledore’s plan. Now, however, he’d met her, taken her measure, and found a way to slot her into his web. Of course, Grindelwald was aware of her. And there was a ring of truth the idea that Tina wold volunteer to come to Rio, especially if she thought Queenie was there.

He still wasn’t certain he liked the idea of her agreeing to work with Dumbledore, but at least she seemed to have done so on her own terms.

_Miss Goldstein has suggested her cover be a personal trip to Brazil, as she is not a known acquaintance of mine, and believes it feasible to outsiders that she seek your company. I am inclined to agree. I am further inclined to overstep my place and privately suggest you’d be a fool to believe your company to be anything other than her primary objective._

_Returning to the task you’ve undertaken, I’d like for you to meet with a woman by the name of Lucia Pescara de la Luna. You will find her reading fortunes for muggle tourists near the arches. Bring Fig, and ask her to read your tea leaves. She may have insight for you regarding another disappearance._   
_Finally, as your friend, I must beg you to recall that life, such that it is, must be allowed to happen between intrigue and work. Don’t let it slip past._  
  
_In friendship,_   
_Albus Dumbledore_

Newt groaned. Romantic advice from Hogwarts’s perennial bachelor. How badly did one have to bungle things to achieve that?

But Tina was coming. Here. To Brazil. When? Neither letter had mentioned anything about the date or time or method of her arrival. It could be today, or a week from now. How was he meant to know?

Tina. His heart was galloping out the rhythm of that word, drumming it against his sternum. Tina-Tina-Tina. She would be with him soon, her eyes and her smile, her physical, literal presence right there, close enough to touch.

What would she do if he couldn’t speak when he saw her? If all he did was reach out and pull her into his arms, as he’d been wanting to do for over a year? He could almost envision burying his face in her dark hair, winding her so tightly in his arms that neither of them could quite draw a full breath. Would she let him? Would she hold him too, frantically cataloging scent and texture and the sound of her breathing against his ear?

He reached for the packet of letters, which Pickett was already beginning to open. Right now, he needed something stable—somewhere safe and quiet to read her letters and figure out what the hell he was going to say to her. His case seemed like a good place to hide. And possibly put on a kettle. It seemed a moment that called for a strong cup of tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I’ve kept you all waiting, but I promise there’s more coming soon! I actually skipped around writing a bit, so I have more drafted down the line. Prepare for adorkable reunion SOON!
> 
> Also, I hope you like the name Fig for the marmoset. I was trying to think of something native to Brazil and couldn’t come up with anything that fit my image of her. So I named her after her favorite treat.
> 
> Also, Dumbledore is such a matchmaker. I like to think that, the whole time he was talking to Tina, he was internally squeeing at their clear and hopeless devotion. I peg him as a bit of a romantic and a LOT of a meddling matchmaker.
> 
> Someday, he will send a letter to Newt that includes the line, “For Merlin’s sake, marry her.” And Newt will just facepalm into eternity because it sounds so simple when you say it like that. And then Tina will propose. XD


	9. At Last

Tina had been in Rio for six hours, and still had no clear idea of how to get in contact with Newt. A full week had past since her conversation with Dumbledore, and in that time she’d caught up with Jacob at his bakery on Tottenham Court Rd., helped Bunty in the menagerie, read several of the books on Newt’s shelves, and transfigured her wardrobe to suit the Brazilian summer. She’d also met briefly with Newt’s brother, who’d passed her a thick file of Auror intelligence on Grindelwald rallies in Portugal and Germany.

“We know they have more in Brazil, but we’re spread too thin to worry about that now.” She’d nodded, studying him. He was so different from Newt, and yet there was a sincerity to him—a drive—reminiscent of his younger brother.

By the third day, she was about to find her own way to Rio when Jacob returned to Newt’s flat with a steamer ticket.

“Some witchy broad dropped it off at the bakery,” he said. “I don’t know—looks like a normal ticket to me.”

Tina had studied it. “It is a normal ticket,” she said. “I’m guessing that means the MACUSA is looking for me. Probably a few of the other ministries too. They won’t want me getting in their way while they’re trying to hunt Queenie.”

A cloud had passed over Jacob’s face. “Wish I could go,” he said. “But I don’t…I don’t think she’d want to see me.”

Tina had paused, then, a tight seam of pain in her chest for Jacob. She touched his cheek. “I’m going to find her,” she said. “I’m going to fix this.”

Jacob’s lips quirked, albeit mournfully. “If anyone can do it, Teen, it’s you.”

He’d stayed behind, and Tina had made the week-long sea voyage alone. She’d stepped off the boat in Rio, amazed at the incredible heat and scenery, at the people in their linen and glamorously-ruffled dresses, at the trees and sand and rich architecture.

She’d studied a map and spoken to plenty of locals on the boat, so it didn’t take her long to find cheap accommodations in Lapa. The room was dirty and seemed questionable in terms of safety, but a few minutes of spellwork had it secured. She’d worry about cleaning it later, after she found Newt.

She’d dashed out, barely taking a moment to change into clothes that didn’t peg her as a hapless tourist.

Rio was fantastically warm. Tina, always cold natured, found herself heated through in a way that made her want to slow down and bask. Unlike the putrid humidity of New York, the scent of Rio’s heat was pleasant, all tropical scents and sticky sweetness, the tinge of cooking meat making tangles of delicious smoke on the breeze. She felt a pleasant sort of sweat blossom across her skin as she climbed the mosaic steps to the entrance of Rio’s Wizarding district.

To gain entry, she had to enter a small side-alley, littered with broken fruit crates. It was there the paper caught her attention.

Trampled, almost disintegrated on the ground, were several words in German, printed in stark black ink. Her senses sharpened. Tina glanced over her shoulder to ensure there weren’t any no-majs nearby and raised her wand.

“Papyrus reparo,” she whispered. The page lifted itself, torn corners mending, bleeding ink seeping slowly back into distinct letters. She scanned it for familiar words. Nothing. Except…there, a phrase she’d seen underlined in the intelligence notes Theseus had given her.

“Für das Allgemeinwohl”

For the Greater Good. And there seemed to be a date and time listed, as well as an address. A glimmer of triumph passed through her. A clue. Tina folded up the page and tucked it in her trouser pocket. She would need to cast a more concentrated translation charm on it later.

Another glance toward the mouth of the alley, and Tina stepped through the false facade and into Wizarding Rio.

There was a notch more activity—things zooming through the air, sparkling, fizzing—but they'd rhythm and color remained the same. Tina was beginning to realize that, with the exception of the United States, Wizarding communities didn’t follow no-maj fashion quite as closely. The lines were just a bit tweaked, with more points and curves and and magically-woven fabrics. Of course, Queenie had been the real seamstress between them. Tina’s great claim to needlework was darning socks.

She wedged herself in line at a newsstand and snagged copies of every paper she could find in English.

“Hey,” she said, paying the new seller. “You don’t know how I get to Castelobruxo, do you?”

The man frowned. “Castelobruxo—no. Jungle.” He waved indistinctly toward the west of the city. “Jungle. Jungle. Dangerous.”

“Got it.”

Tina frowned, strolling on down the twisting thoroughfare. Contacting the school through any official channels would mean alerting those in charge of her presence. The last thing she needed was MACUSA Aurors sliding in to make her job harder. She’d thought to approach the castle itself, but like Hogwarts, it was too well hidden for anyone without direct knowledge of its location to find.

It would have been too easy for Dumbledore to arrange a time and place for her to meet Newt. No. She had to go tearing off through the streets of Wizarding Rio just hoping someone could tell her how to get to Castelobruxo.

She stopped in the thoroughfare, the crowds milling past her. This was stupid. She needed to find Newt, not the school. Maybe she was going about this backwards.

Her hand snuck to the pendant resting against her locket. She pulled her wand from her pocket and tapped it, concentrating on Newt, on his clear hazel eyes and disarmingly large smile, on the rough caress of his thumb on her cheek.

“Amicus locare,” she whispered. The pendant glimmered for a moment, then shuddered and fell with a thump back between her breasts.

Tina sighed. She’d really thought that might work.

All at once, the pendant jerked forward, tugging at the back of her neck. “Ow!” she hissed. It gave another tug. “Alright, alright!”

Tina snatched her locket into her fist, letting the tug of it direct her rather than dragging her along like a krup on a leash. Excitement built with every step. This was a spell that only worked if you were within a certain distance.

That distance might be as far as twenty miles, but it was a good start. She peered up at the tree-lined ridge in the distance. What she really needed right now was a good broom—something to help her cover distance quickly and discretely.

Fortunately, there were plenty of broomstick rental shops along the street, and after demonstrating her proficiency with he required disillusionment charms, she paid the merchant for two days, plus a tip to point her in the direction of the best food stalls. Hunger was beginning to gnaw at her concentration.

She bought a couple of small, pie-like things the vendor called pastéis and ate them indelicately enough to draw the revulsion of a passing woman. She didn’t care. Let the beautiful witches of Rio have their glamor and their sit-down meals. Tina had more important concerns.

At last, she spied a ridge overlooking the city to the west, directly where her pendant was tugging. She summoned will from within, envisioned the electricity of the sky, the pull of the earth at her feet. She sank into the ancestral magic, her roots as deep as sycamore, her spirit high as the clouds.

“Atsá anáá,” she said, and when she opened her eyes, it was like seeing the entire world through a telescope. There, the peach fuzz on a baby’s cheek. There, the twitch of a fly’s wing. And in the distance…the ridge, in crystal clarity. The cliffs were pale and strong, the foliage lush and drooping under the weight of its own plump leaves.

Satisfied, she apparrated, and no sooner did her boots hit soil than she cast a disillusionment spell, mounted up her rented broom, and launched herself into the air.

A laugh tore from her at once, the feeling of air whipping around her, the sky opening up in a million miles of possibility. Mercy, she’d missed flying. Brooms hadn’t been practical in New York, and it had been too expensive a possession for her to justify purchasing if she wasn’t going to use it often. But Tina had been a Quodpot center for Ilvermorny’s Thunderbird Bolts, and just being on a broom again sent her blood singing.

Now, she let the pendant have its rein, directing her along at speed. She zoomed close to the treetops, not wanting to get too close to the occasional no-maj biplane zooming about the sky. She passed gleaming ribbons of green river, breathtaking drops of offwhite stone heaped with green jungle. She tore through a flock of jewel-winged birds that cried out and gave chase, tapering off only when she sped up.

Then, very suddenly, the broom beneath her juddered. The pendant dropped flat to her chest, inert, and her eyes returned to normal. Tina’s legs crashed into the canopy in the same instant she realized all magic had been snuffed out.

She shrieked, twisting in midair and grappling for purchase on the branches as she plummeted. A tangle of vines whipped out, and she crashed into them with a shriek, wrapping herself around them and clinging as she threatened to rebound and launch back into the air.

She came to an abrupt halt and let go, scrambling to right herself. She was in a nest of vines above the jungle floor, and the vines themselves seemed alive. They whipped around her, lashing at her face and her back, tearing into the fabric as though lined with shards of glass. Tina’s wand was in her hand without a thought.

“Protego! Reducto! Incendio!”

The last spell worked better than the first two, but it was underpowered. And the vines were snaking toward her again, winding about her legs. “Incendio! Incendio!”

The mass of vines recoiled, and Tina found herself once again plummeting toward the earth. She cast a silent spell, which should have stopped her fall but, seemed only to break it somewhat. She crashed into a clump of fern and thick-leafed palm, rolling to disperse some of the momentum.

It still hurt. When at last she came to rest, trembling atop a host of broken flora, she was in pain from head to foot.

She rolled to her knees with a groan, coughing, and was just about to open her eyes when something sharp jabbed her in the side.

“Ow!” she said, looking up. She expected to find a branch. Instead, she found a tiny band of furry red creatures. They had stunted, humanoid bodies and covered their faces in what appeared to be bone. The one poking her with his spear had a chupacabra skull for a headpiece.

“Azo!” It announced.

“I…I’m sorry, I don’t speak…whatever that is.”

“Azo!” It said again, poking her harder.

Tina reached for her wand and found, to her utter horror, that it wasn’t anywhere nearby. “My wand,” she said. “Oh Jiminy Christmas, you—-red guy. Can you help me find it? I just had it. Uhhhm, accio wand!”

Nothing happened. Tina groaned. The cardinal rule of a magic fight, and she had already broken it.

The little creature poked her again, this time hard enough to draw blood. “Ow!” Tina looked down at him, resentment and anger winding up her chest. “Stop it! What do you want?”

“They are the guardians of this place, Senhora,” said a voice from the trees. Tina looked to find a man stepping form behind them. He had an absurdly handsome face and carried himself with a kind of debonair swagger that reminded her a bit of Achilles Tolliver, off Achilles had actually been as splashy as he pretended.

“You are trespassing.”

“I was flying over,” she said, pointing at the broom still in the clutches of the vine-thing. “And that’s a rental!”

“Ah, you see,” the man said, pacing closer. He waved the furry red creature back. “It is not permitted for one to fly over Castelobruxo without permission;

“I—but I—wait, this is Castelobruxo?” She took in a breath and let it out again, relieved. “Mercy Lewis, you must have an anti magic barrier in place. That’s why I fell out of the sky and nearly killed myself trying to get away from that…murderous root ball up there.”

The man did not look impressed. “You are tresspassing,” he repeated.

“I’m sorry, I had no idea that-”

“Whatever your purpose, you have compromised the safety of this school. I am sorry, but you will need to be taken for questioning.”

Cuffs appeared around her writs.

“Accio.” With a quick flick, the handsome man had summoned her missing wand to his hand and tugged her to the edge of the trees. “Come.”

“Wait,” Tina said. “Wait, no, I’m—I’m here with—I’m looking for Newt Scamander. You know, the author? He’s supposed to be teaching here and-”

“Senhor Scamander is, indeed, teaching at Castelobruxo. He is, however, not currently planning any public appearances due to-”

“I’m not a fan!” she cried, digging in her heels. The little furry creatures gathered around her ankles, tilting their tiny spears up. She studied them, then the man. Maybe if she followed him, these things would scamper off and she could get the drop on him. He was absurdly well-formed, but a good hand’s height shorter than she was.

The man looked at her. “So, you are what, then? An activist? A stalker?”

“No!” she said. “I’m an Auror. My name is Porpentina Goldstein and I’m a friend of Newt Scamander’s. He knows I’m coming. I just didn’t have a way to get in touch with him, so I…” She gestured back at the tentacled thing dwindling behind them. “I flew. And hoped if I got close enough, I might find him in the woods, studying something with not enough vertebrae and too many eyes.”

The man studied her, his dark eyes flicking up and down. Tina hated to think how disheveled she looked. She could feel the jungle leaves in her hair and the stickiness of blood just barely beading up on her cheek.

“You know Newt Scamander, you say,” the man said. His head was beginning to tilt in interest. “Very well. I will take you to him. He is currently caring for Theodora.”

“Who’s Theodora?” Tina asked.

The man did not answer. Instead, after ten minutes of solid tramping through jungle, she was greeted by a whitish bubble of magic and a mighty, jarring roar.

Her stomach was in knots. Newt was in there. She was about to see Newt. She was bound and filthy and covered in scratches, but she was about to see Newt.

“Senhor Scamander!” Called the man. He tugged at her bindings, pulling Tina with him as he stepped through the protective bubble.

Then came the most welcome voice Tina could ever remember hearing. Like polite sunlight, breaking gold over the world, Newt’s voice sent rays of pure relief into her.

“What was the disturbance, Professor? Just another fwooper ducking in too low, or…”

Tina saw him at the same moment he saw her. He was crouched by the back end of a large lizard, who was lying on her side, great flanks heaving. Four large, stony eggs lay by her side, and there appeared to be a fifth one aiming the elongated end of its shell straight from the creature’s rear end.

The dragon lifted her head, turning toward Tina, nostrils flaring.

Newt himself was in shirtsleeves and dragon-hide gloves, and appeared to be listening to the nearest egg with his wand as an ear-trumpet. The moment his eyes caught hers, they widened. Bright and boyish and the kind of patchy hazel that was all colors at once,Tina could have dived into those eyes and never surfaced.

Newt’s gaze flashed to the man at Tina’s side.

“Get her out of here,” he said, and the strictness of his voice sent the joy straight from her. “She’s covered in blood. Get her—Tina!”

The final egg breached with a gush of pinkish liquid and toppled on the others with a boulder-like crack. At the same moment, the dragon twisted herself onto her feet and, nostrils flaring, made a sinuous, slithering run for Tina.

She pitched herself backwards, slamming into the man holding her bonds and knocking them both down. The Vipertooth’s fangs cracked into the tree behind where Tina had been standing. Newt vaulted it’s back, twisting as if the beast had been nothing more than a particularly high fence, and landed hard on the ground in front of her.

The dragon swung its head, slamming into Newt’s chest as it tried to find its snack. “Stop! It! Theo! Reducto!”

There was a noise like cracking wood, and a loud, animal cry. The dragon shuddered, whipping around, its tail lashing the ground. Newt hooked an arm under Tina’s and hauled her up and back several feet. He twisted, shoved her into the sheer embankment at the edge of the enclosure and bracketed himself against her.

For a moment, she just stared at him—close and real and thinking at an incredible speed. In the next blink, however, his hands were on her face, smearing something brownish-pink and viscous across her skin.

Tina spluttered, but her hands were still pinned behind her back, and Newt had gone still, his chest flush with hers, senses alert to the dragon behind them. The dragon, for her part, seemed too be enjoying a hairy, kicking snack.

The tension in his shoulders relaxed, and he drew back slightly. Tina’s heels returned to the ground, the energy draining suddenly from her. She had nearly just been eaten by a dragon.

Newt was blinking down at her, his hands slack on her arms. He seemed to have no concept of what to say at all.

Tina, finally coming to grips with the situation at hand, realized that the cuts on her face and neck were burning. “Newt,” she said. “What is on my face?”

“Oh,” he said. “Er…that would be…a mixture of dragon’s blood and a cornstarch-water solution to encourage—er—you probably don’t-”

“No,” she agreed, closing her eyes in quiet horror. “I don’t.”

“But you don’t smell like food to her anymore, so she’s far less likely to-”

“Newt.”

“Yes?” He sounded sheepish, almost afraid.

“Get it off my face.”

“Sorry, yes. Evanesco.” The sensation of sticky liquid evaporated from her skin. “Oh. Er…”

Tina opened her eyes to see Newt, wand in his teeth, nearly cross eyed as he peered at something on her face. He plucked a handkerchief from his trouser pocket. And then his warm, dry hand was on her jaw, tilting her chin to the side as he dabbed at the ragged cut on her jaw.

It hurt, but Tina’s heart kicked her sternum for a very different reason. Newt was close enough to breathe on. Real, solid, his light brown hair a wild wreck of messy curls. She felt a bright, tickling sensation sweep across her skin. Suddenly she was grinning, looking up at him, almost bursting with glee. At her smile, Newt refocused, snapping from his concentrated care of her cheek to her eyes.

“Hi,” she said.

He released her chin to pull his wand from his mouth. “Hello, Tina.” His whole face spilled into a grin.

“I’d hug you,” she said, “but I think I’m still under arrest.”

Newt blinked, ducked to the side to check her wrists, and returned an instant later.

“Well,” he said, and the thick timbre of his voice had gone scratchy with shy humor. “That’s a refreshing change. Normally it’s me.”

“Senhor Scamander!” said the Brazilian man, who was making his way over to them on a slight limp. Half his fine suit appeared to be covered in dragon dung. “I see you are acquainted with our intruder.”

“Yes, er—sorry. I…must have forgot to mention she was coming. I invited her, you see. In my last…”

The man looked between them, observing the space growing between them as Newt stepped back from her. Understanding welled in his face, and after a moment, he was grinning as well.

“This is she?” he said, looking Tina swiftly up and down. “I begin to understand, Senhor.”

He flicked his wand, and Tina gasped as her shoulders were given sudden, painful release. Newt caught her arm.

But a moment later, her other hand was enclosed in those of the Brazilian man beside them. “I am Gallant Guerriero, a Professor here at Castelobruxo. Encantado,” he brought her hand to his lips, and it was all Tina could do not to jerk back her hand in embarrassment. Her nails were filthy.

“Alright,” Newt said, “er…Theodora is done laying. She’ll probably finish eating that chimera and sleep straight off. Either that, or she’ll start looking for more to eat. I recommend we go, just in case it’s the latter.”

Tina wanted nothing but to throw her arms around him, then, but the presence of Professor Guerriero and the eagerness of the gaze he flicked between them made her hold back.

Except a moment later, Newt’s hand closed around hers. She tried very hard not to limp as he pulled her up the steep embankment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLYYYYYYYYYYYYY
> 
> GAhhhhhh, I have been waiting to get these two dorks into the same room for 25,000 words! HERE we go.
> 
> I keep wanting to call the vipertooth a velociraptor and a dinosaur instead of a dragon. I don’t know why. I have not watched Jurassic Park or sequels recently. ANYWAY, it’s freezing here—we just got snow dumped all over us. Most places are closed, but I work in a hospital, so I have to go to work. Boo.
> 
> At least it might be slow, in which case I will be able to write a bit more tomorrow. ;)
> 
> I don’t know if y’all have noticed, but each chapter has been titled after a song from the era, most of which are on my Newt Scamander is a Hufflebuff playlist. I feel that this one was aptly named. ;)


	10. We’re All Alone, No Chaperone Can Get Our Number

Tina looked incredibly calm for someone who, not three hours before, had been thrown off a broom into a clump of Devil’s Lash, arrested, and nearly eaten by a postpartum Peruvian Vipertooth. Then again, Newt supposed it difficult to be anything other than calm after two cups of Profesora Remedía’s poppywillow tea.

She’d broken two ribs in her fall, and sustained a sprained ankle and multiple lacerations, plus the additional damage Newt had probably done pinning her to a dirt embankment and smearing dragon’s blood over her cuts. It might have saved her life in the moment, but he still felt a bit guilty for the irritation to her wounds. Fortunately, there wasn’t anything so bad he and Profesora Remedía couldn’t see to it.

Tina sat with Newt on a small sofa in Professor Guerriero’s office, one leg tucked beneath her, feeding bits of date-cake to Fig. She moved as if each limb were made of treacle, and her private smiles at the tiny marmoset seemed to come on a slight delay. Newt didn’t like it. She was so seldom vulnerable that seeing it made him nervous. He couldn’t quite sit back.

Professor Guerriero had returned her wand, fetched Profesora Remedía to assist with Tina’s injuries, and insisted they retire to his office while he smoothed over the trespassing fiasco with the Headmistress.

“A simple misunderstanding, I will assure her,” he’d said.

Newt had thought they might get a moment to talk then, but the potions mistress had insisted that Tina change into fresh clothes before taking her host of medicinal potions. As he moved to step out, Newt had felt Tina’s hand slide surreptitiously into his trouser pocket, leaving something folded.

He’d ducked out, found the folded German flyer she clearly wanted kept secret, and jogged back to his room to stash it. While there, he’d picked up a lonely-looking Fig, hoping to cheer up both Tina and the little primate with an introduction.

By the time he’d returned, Professor Guerriero had arrived, summoned dinner, and was pouring the women small cups of cachaça. Tina—now in a dark blouse and very wide-legged trousers—looked drowsy, though she seemed to be trying to focus on the vivid tale Guerriero was making of catching Theodora.

Newt hadn’t missed the relief on her face when he’d slipped into the room. She wanted to talk to him as much as he did her. He’d sat, restless and a bit frustrated. What he wanted was to get Tina alone, either to talk or to make sure she got somewhere safe before the poppywillow really took hold. Instead, he endured more than an hour of small-talk in Professor Guerriero’s office, feeling like he was being driven slowly insane. Even as Fig clung delightedly to Tina’s hand,taking the proffered morsels of date-cake, the Tina-attuned creature in Newt’s head was rattling the cage, reaching tiny hands through the bars.

It wasn’t until Tina’s hand found his knee that he realized he was jittering his leg enough to rattle the table. At the pressure of her fingers, he went obediently still, returning his attention to Professor Guerriero.

“…and you must absolutely see Sugar Loaf while you are here. A strange name, for certain, but it is a wonderful view of the city. And if you are at all inclined to muggle invention, the cable car is an adventure in itself. Why—”

Newt snuck his hand down to cover Tina’s, squeezing an apology. She tapped his knee with two fingers, then curled them in, making a loose fist beneath his hand. It felt like a small, cold bird beneath his palm. Her fingertips were chilled—the effects of a body redistributing its blood supply for healing. Newt cloaked her hand with his, wishing it wouldn’t be so obvious to warm it up between his palms.

Tina yawned.

“Gallant,” said Profesora Remedía, interrupting the man’s string of recommendations. “Please, the young woman is exhausted. She should be resting. Senhora, can we offer you rooms at Castelobruxo tonight?”

Tina started to protest. “Oh, no, I have a room in-”

Newt was already squeezing her hand halfway through the sentence. She faltered. “Uh…in town.” She glanced at Newt, seeking confirmation he meant for her to accept the offer. He pressed his thumb into her knuckle. “Though I guess unless Newt wants to apparrate me there…”

“Senhora, I forbid you to apparrate in this condition!” Profesora Remedía announced. “Rearrangement of a body in repair upsets the healing process. No, we will arrange a place for you tonight.”

“Perhaps near Senhor Scamander’s rooms?” Suggested Guerreiro with all appearance of innocence. “I understand they have much catching up to do.”

Remedía arched an eyebrow. “Not with three broken ribs.”

Newt’s face blossomed into heat, and he wasn’t certain whether to be excited or annoyed at the assumption that their “catching up” might cause further damage to her ribs. He settled on annoyed when Tina withdrew her hand from his to fiddle with a ruffle on her borrowed blouse.

“Profesora,” scolded Guerreiro. “I am sure our friends can navigate a conversation without causing further injury to Senhora Goldstein.”

“Hmph.” With a flick of her wand, the profesora vanished the tea table. She eyed the two of them suspiciously, as if she’d expected to catch them—two wayward students—holding hands beneath it. Newt was only mildly mollified at her disappointment. After a beat, she nodded. “I’ll put the elves in charge of it.”

Newt rocked himself forward and got to his feet, turning immediately to Tina before Profesor Guerriero could have a fit of gallantry. He held out both hands. She looked up, squinting as she tried to get her eyes to focus on him. No, there would be no apparrition for Tina tonight. The poppywillow potion was setting in.

“Come on,” he said quietly as she took his hands. He drew her to her feet, keeping himself still and steady as she caught her balance. There was concentration on her face, along with the usual wariness she exhibited in uncertain, potentially-dangerous situations.

Fig, clinging to Tina’s hair, gave a thoughtful croon and began picking at the embroidery on her collar. Tina made her way to the door, balancing against Newt’s arm as necessary. They bid the professors good night—Newt ignoring Guerreiro’s sly twinkle—and together they ascended the steps. By the time they arrived at the top landing, Tina was breathing sharply, her face pale and pinched.

“You’re okay,” Newt said. “It’s just the poppywillow and the anemia, you’re okay. It’ll be better in the morning.”

“Why am I anemic?” she wheezed. “I didn’t lose that much blood.”

“No,” Newt agreed, “but the skeletal serum is encouraging extremely rapid bone-production, which requires a lot of blood, so you’ll be low in iron for a bit. That must be you,” he said, nodding to a new door that had appeared beside his. Instead of a mosaic bull, there was an enormous condor.

Tina looked at it, then turned to him. He felt her hand tightening on his arm and—with a swell of relief—understood that she didn’t actually want to leave him just yet.

“Newt,” she began.

“Pickett will want to see you,” he said, spitting out the first excuse that came to mind. “And the nifflers.”

She was standing very close, her forearm braced along his. She was looking at him, a smile starting at the corners of her mouth. He could feel her swaying unsteadily.

“Yeah?” she said. “I’d like to see them.”

Her eyes were inches from his, and there was a hazy sort of sweetness to the way she was smiling. She had such delicately-drawn lips. It would be a very short journey to lean in just now and catch them. He wanted to.

But the memory of Leta’s dilated eyes, her flushed face and heavy, giggling sway seeped into his mind. Blue salt had turned her into prey for Menelaus Rook—she’d been unable to do anything but laugh when he’d snaked an arm around her. “What are you doing?” she’d giggled, when he’d scooped her against him and bent his mouth to hers.

Anger flashed through Newt quick and violent.

He’d done his best to protect Leta. He always had, though she hadn’t seemed to appreciate it much. He knew it was regret and self-loathing that kept her silent, so he’d let it go, time and again. Loving her, being her friend, had meant understanding her pride and the apologies it would not let her make. It meant cutting himself on the shards of her brokenness without blaming her for the jagged edges.

But he’d only been able to bleed so much. Time, the perspective of war and adulthood, had led him to understand that the relationship they’d had at Hogwarts could not have been sustainable. But there had been a part of him that had hoped she’d come into her own, that the fractured girl would strengthen at the seams and rise strong and independent.

And she had. And in an action that had felt like the most bewildering of betrayals, she’d chosen Theseus. She’d loved Newt. He knew that. She’d said it, and he’d felt the truth of it. But she hadn’t been able to say it until the very end. He doubted that anything but imminent death could have drawn it from her. Not for him. Not even if she’d survived.

Queenie had been right. Leta had been a taker. Right up until the moment she gave her life.

Tina’s forehead knocked gently into his. Newt came back to himself, startled to find her face so close. Tina’s eyes were closed, her brow pinched in the slightest of pained expressions.

A gust of determination swept through him.

“Come on,” he said, rearranging his arm around her back, hoping he wasn’t putting pressure on her ribs. “You need to sit down. Occamy teapot.”

Tina’s eyes opened, and she seemed a bit shocked to find herself so close. “I feel drunk,” she managed to say, steadying herself with a hand on his chest. “Is it supposed to get more intense?”

“Two cups is a decently potent dose,” Newt said. He had to flick the mosaic bull to get it’s attention. “Oi, occamy teapot.” It snorted and charged off, triggering the door to open. “And in some people,” he said, nudging her foot. Tina took a step sideways. “In some people—no, other way—it can take a while to metabolize. It always took about an hour before I noticed it really tipping my head.”

“When did you drink it?” Her voice had gone a little high-pitched, like someone trying very hard not to sound sleepy. Her fingers had tightened on his shoulder and tangled in the front of his shirt. She was leaning into his side, full and warm and sluggish.

“War,” he said simply. “Come on, move your feet, Tina. You don’t want me to pick you up. That would hurt.”

She seemed to start awake a bit more at that. He got her through the door but hesitated in the middle of the room.

“You might very well go right to sleep as soon as you sit down,” he said. “Maybe I should just take you next door.”

“I’m fine,” she said, pushing herself clumsily away from him, as if to prove how fine she was. She twisted around toward the chair. “I won’t—”

Newt stepped in, catching her beneath the elbows as she swayed. Tina tipped backwards, colliding gently with his chest. 

“Oof…okay, I’ve got you,” he said. Her hair was a cloud against his cheek, thick and full of the smells of rainforest. “I’ve got you.”

She was quiet a moment. Then her hands reached back, tangling with his. Newt caught his breath, his entire chest aching as she drew his arms around her shoulders and said, “I know.”

She was narrow and warm and strong as a willow in his arms. He could feel the shallow shudder of her breathing, and wondered if the tremble of her breath was because of him or the skeletal recreation. Her cool fingertips pressed into the dips between his knuckles. A slice of bare neck showed just below the curling ends of her hair.

An alchemy of emotion and biology tripped through him, inelegantly fast. The nerves on his fingertips lit up and every organ in his abdomen seemed to melt into something the consistency of warm syrup. He pulled her into him, enjoying the high and low points of her against his body. Before he could think much about what he was doing, Newt ducked his head against her neck.

For a long moment, he just held on and breathed. She was clutching his arms, half keeping them in place—half keeping herself upright. Her skin was burning against his chin, stretched over a delicate tendon that ticked gently with her pulse. He had the wild urge to close his mouth on it.

Newt breathed out shakily, the heat clouding in her hair, against her neck. His lips were parted, so close to her skin. He felt the hitch of her lungs as she took a breath, her fingers digging into his wrist.

He remembered Leta, stretching out beside him in the dark, deserted hospital wing, tears in her eyes as she called him an idiot. “So you wanted to kiss him?” “No.” “Then you’re welcome.” She’d said nothing, just climbed beneath the covers next to him and cried silent, angry tears until she had to go back to the Slytherin dormitory.

He could not do to Tina what Menelaus had nearly done to Leta. If she were in her right mind—not weak-kneed with pain-dulling potions, not injured from a fall through the canopy—and still pressing backwards into him, he would have plucked up the courage.

But he didn’t want it to be like this. So much had gone wrong with their reunion already, he couldn’t let a moment of opportunistic weakness damage things now. Especially not when she literally needed him to stand up. It would be taking advantage. It was wrong, and he knew it was.

“Tina,” he said, and the roughness of his own voice was startling. “You need to sit down.”

She hummed agreement, but only seemed to understand his words a moment later. “Newt…” her voice was thin, wobbly. It was a tiny knife in him. He loosened his hold on her and let her shift awkwardly around to face him. Her fingers twisted into his shirt, and he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off the lithe curve of her back.

Her eyes were two dark, deep pools, burning bright. He wanted to immerse himself. “I missed you, Newt Scamander.”

Oh. He was in trouble.

Newt felt his pulse in his ears. Her hands were moving up to his shoulders, her body easing closer. The invitation to kiss her was in the soft parting of her mouth. “I…” he started to speak. He should respond that he’d missed her as well. He had more than missed her. He’d craved her presence. He’d felt utterly maddened at the absence of her.

Tina’s head tilted down, dropping onto his shoulder before he could quite force himself to commit. She gave a slight, soft grunt. “I think I need to go to bed,” she murmured.

Newt swallowed every single image that inspired. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Poppywillow. It’ll put you right to sleep.” Without quite as much regard for her ribs as he usually would have taken, Newt ducked in and caught Tina’s legs, swinging her into his arms. She was long, and light, and asleep before he opened the bedroom door.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhhhhh, this took so long, I’m sorry! BUT I SWEAR IT’S WORTH IT. MY SHIPPY HEART.

Drowsy cobwebs had adhered to the inside of Tina’s head, and it took her longer than usual to clear them away. She opened her eyes to fragile pre-dawn darkness, disoriented by the strange angles of an unfamiliar room. Her limbs were heavy, her head throbbed, and her tongue seemed to have adhered to the roof of her mouth for want of moisture.

She squeezed her eyes shut again, taking in a deep breath that made her ribs ache. Memory reconstructed itself—falling through the canopy, the vipertooth, the professors and the poppywillow tea—right up until the point where she’d walked into Newt’s room and felt blackness crowding in around her vision. After that, it was only vague impressions of hands on her back, and her head leaning against something solid and warm.

Tina groaned and pushed herself onto her elbow, unsurprised to find herself fully dressed and alone in a strange bed. She decided not to dwell on the conflicting relief and disappointment the discovery inspired. The bed was large—the kind she and Queenie had shared as children in their parents’ home—but had linen sheets and a blanket that felt more like a woven carpet than what she was used to. The room itself was cozy, with a wardrobe and a mural of mountains and jungle on one wall.

Beside her, on a colorfully-tiled nightstand, rested a glass of water and a small vial of some viscous green liquid. A note in Newt’s tidy cursive read, “Don’t ask. Just drink.”

Tina eyed the vial suspiciously. She had no doubt it would help her post-poppywillow hangover, but with a note like that, it probably had something unpleasant and beast-derived as an ingredient.

She swung her feet out of bed, but sitting up gave her such a head rush that she spent the next several seconds clutching the mattress, trying not to topple over.

Hell with creamed slug or frog bile. Tina picked up the potion, popped the cork, and downed it in one. She gagged, grabbed the water, and drank half the glass trying to wash away the murky taste of rotted fish and peppermint adhering to the back of her tongue.

She placed a hand on her chest, wondering for a moment if she were going to bring it all back up.

Then relief rolled through her body, relaxing the ache and washing her brain fully clear. She gave a small hiccup, gave the vial a considering look, and drained the rest of the water. Her wand lay on the table beside it.

Tina found her shoes by the bed and put them on, dragging her fingers through tangled hair. She glanced at herself in the wardrobe mirror. There were bags under her eyes, but the cut on her cheek was almost healed. She looked strange in Profesora Remedía’s clothes—the ruffled blouse was definitely not her style, though the high-waisted culottes wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d only been long enough for her.

Tina eased open the bedroom door and peeked out. The main room was a little parlor with a cluttered writing desk, an armchair in the corner, and a spindly breakfast table. Newt’s familiar suitcase sat on the reading chair, looking just as battered as ever and bearing a second note in his handwriting that read: Down here.

Tina debated with herself for only a moment before clicking open the locks. Newt’s letters had painted him as a very early riser, and she couldn’t be blamed if it turned out he wasn’t.

She climbed down into the shed, a little relieved to see the camp bed empty but for a set of folded, military-issue blankets. There were noises in the menagerie beyond—chitters and calls she could only guess at the meaning of. Given the time of day, hunger seemed to be a natural option.

She stepped through the shed’s door, out into the construction of miniature habitats crowded with creatures, and took in a deep breath. A glimmer of wonder stirred in her chest. There was nothing complex about the spellwork—any average wizard could perform the charms he’d used—but he’d managed to create something so deeply astounding it defied acceptance. It was like the no-maj feats of architecture, made with nothing but stone and sweat and incredible imagination.

He’d called it habitat curation, but Tina couldn’t see it that way. Newt simply didn’t realize it took an artist to recreate nature so beautifully.

A black, furry cannonball hit Tina at chest height. She yelped in surprise, instinctively catching the thing in her arms, where it wriggled and chittered in excitement, tiny paws scrambling.

“Oh!” She said, as the niffler—Pest, as Newt called her—jammed her bill under Tina’s hand. “Hello, you!” She ruffled the creature’s fur, touched by the excitable demonstration. It wriggled and wallowed against her, chirping in joy. She hadn’t realized she’d made quite that big an impression on the little guy.

It paused, and then Tina felt a tug at her neck as it stuffed her locket—and Newt’s watch fob—directly into its pouch. She laughed. “I see what you’re really excited about,” she said, tugging at the chain. The Niffler tugged back.

“Tickle him!”

Newt’s voice rang out, above her and to the right, some distance away. Tina searched, finding him on a built-up rise, one arm hooked over a wooden fence. There was a brace of dead rodents over his shoulder, presumably for whatever was waiting beyond that fence, and he was grinning at her. He looked rumpled and relaxed with his shirtsleeves rolled back, bracers hanging down where he’d shrugged them off. It was clear he’d slept in his clothes, and even clearer that he didn’t care.

He looked boyish. Happy. Utterly in his element. Her heart swelled, suddenly feeling too full and too light at the same time. Was it possible to fall in love with someone you were already in love with? Perhaps language hadn’t been invented yet to describe the feeling.

Tina waved, unable to speak past the feeling, and Newt pulled himself nimbly over the fence.

Tina tickled the Niffler’s chest, and it squeaked and stretched, releasing its hold on her locket. She bent and released the little creature to the ground. “Go on—how do I get up there?”

The Niffler sniffed, then cackled an affirmation and tore off up a side path in its signature waddling scamper. Tina followed, climbing wood-braced steps that felt like old planks built into a hillside. The grass was cool and dark, the kind she recalled from the Scottish moors on her brief visit to Hogwarts, and her pavement-worthy shoes wouldn’t have been up to the task of gripping it without those makeshift steps.

She climbed around to what turned out to be a small paddock attached to a two-stalled shelter. In the middle of the paddock, Newt stood in a tense, ready position, one arm extending a dead rodent toward the biggest, meanest hippogriff Tina had ever seen.

It was a dark, dappled thing with score marks along its flanks, stormy feathers patchy around its neck and chest. And from all the pawing and hissing and aggressive lunging it was doing, she suspected it had not welcomed Newt’s advance with the customary bow.

Which itself was strange. Tina hadn’t thought there was a creature in the world that didn’t instinctively like Newt.

And, apparently, it wasn’t happy with the approach of yet another human. The hippogriff swiveled its head and let out a shriek.

“Er, no—stay by the fence, Tina,” Newt said. This was fine, as she hadn’t planned to do anything different. “He’s frightened—he’s been beaten. There you go, boy. Come on. One step forward. Just give me one and I’ll let you have it.”

Tina, suspicions confirmed, frowned at the rawness of the poor creature’s skin. It scratched hard at the ground, digging trenches with its eagle claws.

“Come on. One step. I know you’re scared, but I promise it’s alright. You’re safe. One step.”

The hippogriff half lunged, snapping its beak near Newt’s hand. He didn’t even flinch.

“Not like that, come on. You can do it. One step. Just one. Yes! Good,” he tossed the rodent, and the hippogriff snapped it from the air and knocked back its head, swallowing the thing whole. Newt tossed a second, and while the hippogriff was busy unnecessarily crunching the thing’s skull, he took his own quiet step forward. The hippogriff eyed him.

“How’d you find him?” Tina asked.

“Tip from mum,” Newt said, and Tina remembered he’d said his mother bred fancy hippogriffs. “She had a bad feeling after seeing one of the yard’s yearlings and sent me an owl. I-” he tossed another rodent “-ended up getting the beast department involved. In this case, regulations worked in my favor. Except they wanted to put poor Ernie down.”

Tina restrained a laugh at the absurd name. Really—Ernie? Where did he come up with these ill-fitting monikers?

“So you took him instead,” she said, a tickle of pride beneath her sternum. Newt wasn’t the sort to give up.

“Mhmm.” He was only half-listening, but that was alright. Tina would rather he pay attention to the angry beast five feet from his head. “And he’s gotten much better about not attacking me for food now he knows I always give it to him. Right now, this is our ritual. He threatens, I feed him and get closer. We’re almost down to a meter. Alright. Have them.”

Newt dropped the last few rodents and waited for the hippogriff to break eye contact before backing away. He drew closer to Tina, walking backwards. “He still doesn’t like me much, though, do you boy?” The hippogriff cracked a spine in answer. Newt reached the fence by Tina and, in a few quick movements, hauled himself over it. “We’ll get through it,” he grunted, boots slamming into the dirt. “Hopefully before the new foal hatches.”

“Foal?” Tina said, feeling her eyes widen.

Newt nodded to the shelter, and she turned to see an enormous, mottled egg mounded in hay. The haze of the air suggested several heating charms.

Newt’s fingers touched her cheek, and she snapped her attention back to him. He was looking at the healing cut on her jaw. “Sorry,” he said absently. “Are you feeling well again?”

“I had a hangover until I drank that green potion. And you’re right—I don’t want to know what it was.”

“Ribs alright?” He still wasn’t quite looking at her, and there was something nervous in his voice. Her own nerves fluttered.

“Yeah, I think they’re fine.”

“That’s good,” he said. And then, without a hint of preamble, he ducked in, grabbing her up in a hug that lifted her feet clear off the ground.

Then she was laughing, hugging him in return, fighting not to wrap her legs around him because she wanted to hold onto him with every part of her. He was laughing too, and she felt the vibration of his voice resonating in his chest. That feeling was magic. He was here. Here. Here! The person she had needed for over a year was finally in her arms, and holding him was everything she remembered. It was more. There had been so many layers between them then. Not just waistcoat, sweater, and her stiff leather coat, but also grief, holding them apart as surely as any cloth. But here—a year and a half gone—it was nothing but scars and shirtsleeves, and he was solid and real in her arms, warm, his neck slightly damp.

Time pulsed by in heartbeats, the moment when friends would have parted sliding past them, and still Tina held on, hoping he wouldn’t let go first, her head going light with each second that he didn’t. Her mind raced to process and memorize this moment, to lock away every detail, from the way his face fitted warm and slightly rough against her neck, to the long bands of muscle down his back.

In fact, her body was registering his entire figure with the sort of dumbstruck glee usually reserved for men who’d gotten their first look at Queenie. He’d always looked trim buttoned up in his tidy waistcoats and gently patterned shirts, but the truth beneath was something of a far rougher cut, meant for far less civilized things than the stiff streets of London.

A pleasant sort of certainty was dawning in her brain as she realized that neither one of them were willing to be the first to let go.

A muffled squeak between them caused Newt to startle, his arms loosening enough to drop her back to her toes. They leaned apart, still clutching each other, and Pickett spidered up from Newt’s breast pocket, smoothing a crumpled…ear-leaf-thing (Tina didn’t have the first clue of bowtruckle anatomy).

“Sorry,” Newt said on an exhale. “Sorry, Pick—I didn’t think.”

The bowtruckle chirped again, then seemed to focus on Tina. His tiny eyes widened, and he tugged on Newt’s shirt, thorny fingers pointing. “Yes, it’s Tina,” Newt said, laughing. “You can say hello-”

“I didn’t mean to crush you,” Tina said, letting go of Newt’s arm to hold out a finger. Pickett reached for it, climbing on her hand and down her arm with a series of excitable noises she couldn’t decipher.

Newt’s expression was gentle, pleased. “He’s happy to see you.”

“I’m happy to see him,” she admitted, and was surprised to find her throat a bit tight. She’d missed them all. “I’m happy to see all of you.”

“The murtlap is here somewhere,” Newt said. She looked sharply up, ready to explain that she hadn’t missed any of his bitier charges, when she saw the secretive humor in his face.

“With a few exceptions,” she said wryly. Then, to her surprise, Newt cupped the back of her neck and lifted his lips to her hairline. And somehow, in the sweetness of that, Tina had to breathe past a sudden rush of déjà vu. For a moment, she was in the tidy east village townhouse with its plaster ceilings and polished bannister, perfect for sliding down. She was safe, ignorant of the possibility that a world without her parents could exist. Family simply was, and couldn’t be taken away.

Now, a similar feeling skittered at the edge of her senses, tempted by the undemanding gesture of affection. A sort of safety that life had taken away from her at nine years old stepped warily forward, watching to see if it would be allowed to stay.

Tina leaned into him, the ache in her chest sudden and surprising. He seemed to be resting there, his lips relaxed against her forehead, and she realized he was smiling, and the little tugs by her ear were him untangling Pickett from her hair.

“Has he gotten himself stuck?” she asked.

“He can pick locks,” the words were mouthed against her hairline. “But long hair seems to pose a few too many variables. Oh, stay still. No need to panic—I’ll get you out.”

Tina smiled, hooking her hands in his pockets as he untangled the bowtruckle from her hair, and the only thought passing through her mind for a moment was how much she adored this charmingly awkward man.

At last, he turned his head, cheek moving to her temple as the gentle tugs on her hair finally relaxed and the bowtruckle was freed. “There you are. Yes, it’s a dangerous world, Pickett. Go on. Pop in.”

Tina hooked a finger into Newt’s shirt pocket and tugged it open. She could feel both of them smiling as the bowtruckle vanished inside.

Then her stomach made a foray into the conversation with an audible growl.

Newt took her shoulders and stepped back, looking a little sheepish. “Er…there’s probably-” he pointed at the ceiling. “I mean, I’ve fed everyone down here. There’s usually food fit for humans upstairs by that time.”

She tried to hide the little flash of disappointment as he stepped away, motioning her toward the path. “After that potion you gave me, I’m not sure I really want anything.”

“Healing takes energy. You’ll feel better.”

She followed him down the path and, as he paused to shoulder on his bracers and pick up the waistcoat draped across his work table, Tina pulled herself up the steep staircase and back into the neat little parlor.

House elves had been in. A lamp burned on the desk, and there was indeed food set out on the breakfast table. Fig—her fur now back to its true white—sat in a bowl of fruit, unceremoniously stuffing her face.

“Oh dear.” Newt’s voice came from the case, and Tina looked down to see him half out of it, studying the table with a resigned expression. “Do you think House Elves gossip?”

Tina blinked at him, then turned back to the table. That was when she realized there were two coffee cups and two plates. She didn’t remember there being two chairs this morning, either. She gave a short laugh, embarrassed but a bit happy at the thought of scandalized House Elves.

“The free ones gossip worse than crows,” she said, drawn to the table by the scent of something doughy and fried. She really was hungry. “I think you’re going to have to accept the fact that everyone here has made assumptions.”

Newt sighed and clambered the rest of the way out of the case. Tina, a little worried at his closed expression, hoped it was just his usual inability to cope with the expectations of society. He did cross to the table, at least, hooking his hands in his pockets in his customary display of self-consciousness.

“You going to sit down?” Tina asked, twitching her wand. A simple locomotion charm sent the coffee tureen and cups into the air. “Or are you still afraid I’ll poison you.”

Newt glanced at her, and something in his posture relaxed at the callback. He sat, accepting the coffee cup hovering before him. “Thank you, no. It’s just—conversations with Professor Guerreiro are going to be even more excruciating than normal. He found out I was writing to you and just… Well. He used to talk about maps. Now?” His grimace indicated a far more uncomfortable topic.

Tina was careful to keep accusation out of her voice when she said, “But you didnt. Write, I mean.”

Newt glanced up. “Oh. Er, actually, I…” he set down his cup. “Actually, I did. I just didn’t, well—here.” He leaned back in his chair, lifting it onto two legs as he stretched his arm to the writing desk and snagged a notebook from it. “I didn’t send anything, because, you know. But I did write. After a fashion.”

He extended to her something that looked very much like his manuscript journal. The notebook was a simple composition variety, with a thicker paper cover inscribed with “1929 - Brazil”. Half the pages were warped, having been written on, and there was an odd lumpiness to it that suggested pasted-in notes and dog-eared pages.

Tina wasn’t sure what to make of it. Had he written her letters amidst his notes, intending to transcribe and send them later?

“What…” she flipped back the cover, finding the expected table of contents, with it’s neat set of dates and topics. She flipped to the first entry.

“It, er, started as a field journal,” he said. Tina nodded. “But I suppose I’d been writing to you so often that it just…felt more natural to…” he trailed off. “I gave up by the third entry.”

Tina’s focus sharpened, understanding flashing through her. “You wrote me field notes?”

He gave her a measuring look, as though hunting for the correct answer in her face. A bit helplessly, he finally said, “Er…yes. Sort of a combination field journal and, well, I thought you’d find some of the stories entertaining, and I know you like to read…”

Tina flipped back to the table of contents and scanned it. He’d written consistently, almost every day. She flipped ahead, finding the third entry.

__

Dear Tina,

__

I’ve decided to write field letters, which are something I’ve invented because field notes seem a bit unsatisfying now I’m used to writing to someone specific. You may never read this. I may never let you. It will probably be filled with hatchling counts for creatures you’ve never heard of, but at least I won’t be quite as annoyed by the post embargo if I can tell myself I’m writing to you.

Tina flipped a few pages, finding sketches of plants, a few questions scribbled into the margins. An inky scrabble with an arrow pointing to it and a notation that said, “Pickett, saying hello.”

“It’s probably a bit long, so you can skip-”

“No,” Tina said. “It’s…” she gave a little laugh, inordinately touched. “This is…it’s like you’ve written another book. But it’s…”

Written to her. Directly to her. Exclusively to her. She kept paging through, silenced by the number of times he’d written her name, by the sheer amount of words built up over the pages. She took a sip of coffee, trying to process.

He composed so easily on the page, described things so clearly she could picture them. The awkwardness vanished, and it was like a direct tap into his personality. Over the course of a paragraph, he had her laughing about dugbogs.

“You’re funny in writing,” she said.

He gave a pleased chuckle. “Less so out loud, though. Can’t frame it right.”

“No, you’re funny out loud too,” Tina said, turning to the next page, her eyes still skimming greedily over the words. “But it’s usually unintentional.”

Newt snorted. It was a long moment before she realized she was still reading, leaving him in silence. She glanced up, and found him sitting, chin in hand, watching her read his words. Neither of them had touched the food. Tina straightened up, closing the book a bit reluctantly.

“I’ll have to read more about the dugbogs later,” she said. “I guess you… Do you have classes, or—what exactly is it you do here? Teach?”

“God no,” Newt said. He pushed a piece of fried bread onto her plate. “You eat. I’ll talk. But no, fortunately, I’m not doing much teaching at all. As it transpires, I’m awful at it, though the faculty very kindly lies to me. I have the occasional presentation of sorts, but I honestly just try to get the students interacting with creatures as quickly as possible so I don’t have to just…stand and talk to them. Which is where all things in my life typically fail.”

Tina lost a few crumbs to a laugh.

“Anyway, mostly what I do is research, which has been fascinating. You’ll read more about it, but I’ve managed to locate natural habitats for several creatures in the area, and it’s been very illuminating to study them in the wild. The dugbog, for instance-”

Tina watched him fondly, enjoying how animated his expression became while discussing his research. They both relaxed, easing back into comfortable companionship.

Both of them were too long-legged for the tiny breakfast table, and after several minutes of shifting and rearrangement, they settled in with opposite legs stretched out, unconsciously mirrored. Tina’s right knee was bent, and when she reached forward for a piece of cheese, it leaned against his extended leg. She left it there, reminded a bit of that night in his London flat, only the surrounding circumstances made it a hundred ways more comfortable.

There was something less necessary about the contact, something unhurried about it that made her feel as if they might sit here for the several hours. Maybe they’d do this again, while she was in Rio. Maybe they could do this most mornings. Sit together, eating breakfast and talking, unrushed and simply being in each other's company.

Dawn light peered in through the window, and she glanced to find it flooding across the rainforest beyond the window, turning the heavy mist into an amber surf. Beams of liquid light spilled across the small parlor, turning motes of dust into flecks of gold.

She became aware of Newt’s silence with a jolt. “Sorry,” she said. “What?”

He gave her a reflexive smile and shook his head. “Still…can’t really get my head around you being here.”

Tina nudged his leg. “I know. I keep thinking-”

“Did you know, I-”

They’d spoken over each other and both abruptly stopped. Tina met his eyes, and the brightness in them called to her—she didn’t know what to call the emotion in them, but she was completely sure it was the same nameless thing fluttering in her now.

His hand was on the table, fingers by the coffee tureen. She reached out, threading the tips of her fingers through his. “I think we’re both real enough.”

Newt seemed to have run out of words. He watched their interlaced fingertips for a moment, and the look on his face was the same one he’d worn in the archives of the French Ministry, equal parts earnestness and distress. Then he turned his hand over on the table, offering it palm up.

Tina wasn’t sure why, but that offer seemed to stop her heart for a moment. Maybe it was because they were no longer in the somewhat ridiculous throes of their first real hug since leaving each other in London, or maybe it was because there was no reason for them to hold hands, and no way to justify it as accidental, like her knee against his leg. It was as simple as wanting to touch each other, and admitting it.

Tina’s fingers crept forward, and there seemed to be a thousand more nerves in it than before. His hand had been warmed by the coffee cup, and the callused skin at the base of his fingers made a friction of sparks against her fingertips. When she settled them on his wrist, the heel of his hand fitted into the hollow of her palm. She felt his thumb on the bone of her wrist.

How was this so much more intimate than wanting to have her legs around his waist?

A massive cry sounded from the jungle outside, startling them both. Newt twisted around, his hand closing around hers. “Bugger. That’ll be Theo,” he said. “She’ll actually need feeding now she’s laid her eggs.”

“You haven't been feeding her?” Tina said, startled. “No wonder she tried to eat me.”

“Well, dragons often don’t eat when they’re carrying eggs. Their stomach gets crowded out. That’s why it was so dangerous for a bleeding woman to brought into her enclosure immediately after she was through—she’d been starving for weeks.”

Tina lifted the last of her coffee and saw Newt do the same. “So I smelled like dinner.”

He hummed an agreement and set down his cup, glancing back at the window. “Well,” he stood up, his grip shifting to better help her up. “Do you want to be introduced as inedible?”

Tina grinned and pulled herself up, feeling a bit giddy, and not at all sure of what was going to happen next. “Does anyone say no to that?”

“I haven’t asked.”

He paused, glancing down at their linked hands. Tina had a feeling she knew what was going on in his head—did they walk out of here, hands linked, and confirm everyone’s suspicions that they were a couple?

Were they?

It felt like they were heading in that direction, but it still felt a bit fragile, like an inkling that still needed time to crystallize into an idea. Under too much scrutiny, it might fall apart.

Much as she didn’t want to, Tina knew she’d have to give him an excuse to let her go. “Before we go, what did you do with the paper I gave you last night?”

Newt stiffened in surprise, “Oh, bugger, that’s right.”

And then his hand left hers, and Tina consoled herself by reaching for the door and tapping it open. The mosaic bull snorted. Newt stepped to the wall and tapped a patch of mural, which peeled away from the wall and revealed itself as the flyer. He folded it on his way back to the door.

“I may need to confer with you about Fig’s owner,” he said, his voice dropping to a more serious tone. “He was using a similar paper, but to a different purpose.”

Tina tucked the flyer in her pocket. “You mean, as code or-”

Newt’s hand was over her mouth, and Tina was shocked to find him crowding her space, his face against her cheek.

“Shh,” he breathed. Tina, who had thought nothing of saying this in an empty doorway down and equally empty corridor, felt the hairs on her neck stand on end. Newt let his hand fall to her shoulder and whispered. “The mosaics.”

Tina met the eyes of the bull over his shoulder and realized it had gone still, as if attentive.

A very different sort of frisson passed through her when she met Newt’s eyes again. She nodded. Clearly, they had more than personal things to catch up on, because the only reason he might be worried about the mosaics listening was if he thought someone might be spying on him.

And the only reason he’d think someone might be spying was if something had happened to convince him. And that meant there was someone at Castelobruxo he didn’t trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY OKAY, I know they haven’t kissed yet. But it’s coming. THEY NEED TO BE SWEET AND AWKWARD AND HEART-KILLING A LITTLE LONGER, OKAY? These two idiots do not have their ship—I mean, their shit—together. They gonna need help.
> 
> Also, tell me which of their little moments was your favorite. The big hug, the forehead kiss, the journal, or the hand-holding?


	12. Sometimes the Past Can

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy freaking...this chapter is p0tty murDAH. But it was so much fun to write.
> 
> Also, if you read tarot cards, I’m so sorry. I had friends who are readers look over it, but...as someone who does not read, I can’t claim any real knowledge. Shall we just say, “Witches be crazy?”

By the next afternoon, Tina had gone back to her accommodations in Lapa and Newt had endured several hours of covert staring from various faculty members pretending to be interested in the vipertooth.

Just after sunset, when the caipora were setting their traps and calling to each other in high-pitched laughter-like cries, Professor Guerreiro caught up to him on the paths toward the edge of the school’s protective barrier. Newt, who had hoped to avoid the man a few hours longer, was subjected to the anticipated list of queries.

The dashing professor was just as incorrigible as Newt had feared. Moreso when he discovered that Tina had come to Rio specifically to visit him.

“She quit her job,” Newt said, not sure how this added to his argument.

Guerreiro’s eyebrows lifted. “Then she is clearly seeking her next position, perhaps as the keeper of a handsome young magizoologist?”

Newt cringed. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“She is a handsome woman, Senhor Scamander,” said Guerreiro, shaking his finger very close to Newt’s nose. “Please tell me you are uninterested and I will pursue her myself.”

Oh, now, that was an amusing thought. Newt actually grinned, envisioning Tina’s deadpan annoyance if Guerreiro were to apply his excessive flirtations to her. “I’d actually enjoy watching that unfold.”

“You mean to say she would hurt me.” Guerreiro turned a dramatic gaze to the canopy, his lips curling into a smirk. “She is wonderfully intimidating. It’s the eyes. So beautiful. Fortunately, I like forceful women very much.”

Newt squinted, uncomfortable with this insight into the other man’s preferences, and even more uncomfortable with the way he was pretending to imagine Tina.

“Oi,” he said. “I know you’re trying to provoke me and it isn’t going to work.”

Guerreiro lifted his hands in a placating gesture and stepped over a thick vine. “Very well. But you are going to meet with her now, are you not?”

“Until yesterday, we hadn’t seen each other in almost a year and a half. Shockingly, we’ve got some catching up to do.”

“Tell me this at least, my friend: did you make the mistake of allowing her to go to her room last night?”

Newt stopped walking and crossed his arms, unsurprised but somewhat disappointed. He’d hoped for a bit more maturity. But…perhaps that was a matter of culture. Perhaps Newt was simply too primly British for this conversation.

“No,” he answered truthfully, but held up a hand at Guerreiro’s celebratory grin. “I didn’t know the password for her room, and she’d dunk two cups of poppywillow tea. I slept-” he snapped his fingers to get the other man’s giggling attention “I slept on the floor.”

Which was true in spirit, if not in technicality.

Guerreiro leveled a skeptical look at him, then, after a moment, seemed to come to the conclusion that Newt was being sincere.

“Truly?” He looked a bit frustrated. “You would waste the opportunity of a reunion?”

Newt frowned, his disappointment growing. “Did you think I’d take advantage of a woman whose injured and out of sorts with medication? Whatever either of us feel, it was not the moment.”

“She came to Rio for you, my friend. I do not think she would have minded so much.”

A troubled feeling rolled around in Newt’s chest. He hated this sort of thing. “I’d like her to make that decision in her right mind. And remember it.”

Guerreiro sighed. “If it must be, it must be.”

A twist of true irritation brought Newt’s words out ahead of his brain. “I can’t believe your parents called you Gallant.”

But the Professor only giggled. “I should have been called Eager!”

“You should have been called Rake.”

Guerreiro offered a pleased grin. “What does this mean? A gardening tool?”

“No, it means you’ve got good looks and loose morals.”

The professor’s laugh was jarring. “Yes! You have me to the letter, my friend! I am a horrible degenerate. Or, I would like to be. Please allow me to corrupt you.”

He took Newt’s elbow as they walked, stretching a hand out toward the east. “You must take Senhorita Goldstein to see the beach at Ipanema. In the nighttime. It is the most beautiful place in the world. If she will not fall in love with you there—”

“I’m not actually worried about that part,” Newt said, desperate to shut the professor up. A moment later, he twigged what he’d said. A moment after that, he was disoriented to find it was true. He was…actually fairly certain of Tina’s feelings. The way her face had gone gentle as she read his journal, her eyes bright and flickering.

Her pulse had tapped at the hollow of her throat when she’d laid her hand in his.

No, he wasn’t actually worried about her falling in love with him. It was simply a matter of the right moment. There was a skittishness about her, not of rejection, but of something else. Possibly, there had been too much change in her life already and she couldn’t cope with more. But he understood skittish. He could offer her his hand wait for her to learn she could trust him, one step forward at a time. If he could just hear her voice and see her salamander’s eyes and just exist in her presence day by day, he had all the patience in the world.

Guerreiro was watching him with a proud sort of smirk. “You have surprised me,” he said. “You are confident she loves you. So…”

They were coming to the edge of the barrier. Newt extracted his wand from his sleeve, eager to be away from the awkwardness of this conversation. He probed the shield, watched the gold of magic burn away like embers eating at paper. He stepped through before, already prepared to be annoyed. “So what?”

“So, you are intimate already. You and Senhorita Goldstein?”

Newt turned back, leveled him a look he usually reserved for his most incorrigible niffler, and disapparated.

#

He apparrated near the arches again. This time, when he stepped into an evening heavy with the richness of nightly celebration, it was to find Tina leaning against an arch near the samba bar’s courtyard, arms crossed. Her closed posture was explained at once by the muggle man leaning far too close beside her, gesturing to the rhythmic froth of ruffled skirts and pale hats behind him.

Yesterday, the sight of her dirty and frazzled had been enough to make him clumsy as a schoolboy. Tonight, he was getting the full effect of Tina Goldstein, and at enough of a distance to appreciate it.

She cut a tall and narrow figure, limned by the glow spilling from the lanterns outside the samba bar. Her hair was clean and neat enough now to see that it had grown past her chin, dense and dark and slightly untamable. She’d tilted her head back a bit, lifting her chin way from the man flirting with her. It gave her a sort of deified beauty that made him want to just stare at her. Maybe form a religion. She’d make a lovely church window.

But nothing could capture those eyes. For long moment, he just gazed at her, understanding exactly where the muggle man was coming from.

Tina shook her head, and the man put his hands to his heart, clearly begging her to reconsider. Newt smiled privately, enjoying the sight of her so irritated. Then the man snagged her hand and pulled it to his chest. He walked backwards, trying to draw her into the crowd of dancers.

Tina tried to jerk away, but he held on, clamping her hand with both of his.

That was his big mistake. Newt was already in motion as Tina’s free hand went toher wand and froze, battling the instinct to react like a witch. She’d never really needed to react a different way.

Newt lengthened his stride. This poor stupid man—she’d probably break his nose. A group of other Brazilian men were laughing, calling out encouragements to the man and—Newt suspected—catcalls to Tina. And there was the fist, balling up at her side.

Newt’s mind dropped into tactics. Covert spell, muffling the friends. Get her hand, get between them. That slim, white-knuckled fist was lifting. Merlin, he’d probably have to hold her back.

He jogged the last three meters, arriving suddenly at the muggle’s shoulder. A monkey grip to the thumb broke the man’s hold, allowing Newt to dart in and rescue Tina’s hand.

“So sorry,” he said, pulling Tina’s arm under his. “But she’s said no.”

“She has,” Tina growled. “Someone needs to learn what it means.”

Newt locked her elbow and turned just in time to catch her aggressive step forward. She fetched up against his arm and, barred, gave him a startled look. Newt squeezed her hand, covering it with his opposite one, both to soothe her anger and to keep her from breaking his grip.

This was a practiced posture. He’d employed it nearly weekly with Leta, who’d been a positive tempest of anxiety and rage her sixth year. But she had been a head shorter than him. Tina was a bit more of a challenge. He had to sink his weight into his heels to hold her back.

The man made an open-armed gesture of good-natured defeat and wandered back to his friends, who howled at his misfortune.

Tina was seething, but she seemed to have recognized the wisdom of not starting a fistfight in a crowded street whilst on a covert mission.

“Why is that everyone I talk to lately seems to think ‘no’ means ‘convince me’?”

“I’ve also found it less effective than usual,” Newt said. “Perhaps the nuance is lost in translation.”

“What nuance?” She was still spitting mad, her fingernails digging slightly into his jacket sleeve. “Are Brazilian women this pushy.”

“Not in my experience,” he said. “Which, admittedly, is limited. I did have an altercation with one who was quite a bit more forward than your friend, though.” He nodded away from the samba bar, in the direction of the coast, pointing their clasped hands that way. Tina started walking almost before he did.

“Forward how?” she said.

“Ah,” he gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’m fairly certain she was a pickpocket, but she pretended quite a different profession and, er, wouldn’t accept my rejection of her company.”

Tina glanced up, a flicker of humor showing though her annoyance. “You must have handled that with the usual grace.”

“I suppose what she expected to find in my pocket was something other than a bowtruckle. She seemed surprised.”

The glorious laugh that burst from Tina seemed to dim the unpleasantness of the memory. For a moment, her weight sagged on his arm, her steps becoming uneven as mirth overrode her balance. Newt steadied her, hands squeezing tight on hers, and had to talk over his own laughter. “Pickett quite protected my honor.”

“I’m sure he did!”

She regained her step, but kept her arm in his as they fell into a more comfortable silence, turning left at the aqueduct and following it along into the dark. The three-story wall of arches stretched out along the district of Lapa to the west, but on the eastern side, moved into greenery. The little gallery of open spaces beneath offered home to impermanent stands of handmade items, to food vendors in carts, to groups of weathered locals gathered on barrels and makeshift seats, smoking cigars and passing around bottles. There were guitarists and trumpet players, competing with the calls of night birds and insects.

It was also home to a shocking number of fortune tellers, one of whom was the woman Dumbledore had written him about.

The night deepened, temperature creeping downward with teasing fingers. Newt and Tina walked arm in arm, passing colorful pockets of color and bustle, until regular gaslight transitioned to intermittent pools of oil lanterns. The foot traffic slowed to a trickle, and the people tucked inside the arches made conversation in low voices. Grass grew on either side of the narrow path, hemming it in darkness.

With a sparse line of tree and undergrowth to their right, it almost felt like the city had disappeared, like they were walking along on the edge of some ancient civilization, with only mystics and travelers beside them.

It would have been nice to do this with no objective in mind. He’d have liked to stop and investigate some of the interesting smelling foods, poke through the odds and ends for bits of muggle lore—they often had such interesting views on beasts—and most of all, to simply wander with this extraordinary person at his side, and feel no tug of responsibility calling it to end.

It felt good to walk with Tina like this, her shoulder bumping agains the back of his, her elbow tucked warm against his side. They’d settled into a more natural walk, his hands hooked into jacket pockets, her fingers curled around his forearm. He liked the feeling even moreso because her stride matched his so well. The only women who’d consistently taken his arm had been Leta and his mother, and they were both short enough that he’d been forced to change his gait. After Hogsmeade days or afternoons at the hippogriff races, Newt had always had a sore back from tilting down.

Tina could have set her chin easily on his shoulder and spoken directly into his ear. Imagining that caused him to miss a step. He skidded slightly on the loose path beside the darkened arches and Tina hugged his arm, steadying him.

“Whoa there, Mr. Scamander,” she said. The teasing way she used his last name did not help him at all to regain his balance, her consonants crystalline. In fact, it rather made him want to stop walking, here in the dark between lanterns, and ask her to say it again. Her accent did things to his name. Things that made him feel stupid.

“Locus muffliato,” Tina whispered, drawing Newt’s attention back to the tiny dirt path. “Tell me about Fig’s owner,” she said. “You mentioned they had a flyer as well?”

His mind snapped suddenly back into focus. “Of course, yes.” He explained to her everything he knew about the flyer, and it’s seeming use as a cover for communications among the spies. “The flyer you had didn’t have such a message attached. I looked. So, either the messages have stopped or whoever was writing them is keeping quiet.”

Tina’s brow was drawn, but she nodded. “That’s standard precautions when an Auror is compromised in the field. You keep your head down a while.” They continued on a few steps. “Do you think Fig’s master was the one writing the correspondences?”

“I’ve no idea. But if he was, the network has lost its form of communication.”

“Hopefully they have more than one.”

“Mhmm.” Newt pulled out his watch, checking the little spelled compass, which had angled slightly near the wall. Here was a collection of patterned scarves and tin braziers, starry holes punched into lanterns. “That’s us, I think.”

Tina scanned the collection of painted banners, all bearing palms and crystal balls. “Did Dumbledore want you to meet with…” she gestured to the odd pockets of humanity along the wall.

“His contact reads fortunes for the muggles,” he said. “I’m meant to get my tea leaves read. Oh, and I’ve got Fig with me, though I don’t know why.”

Tina eyed the relatively slim silhouette of his jacket. “Another extending charm?”

“They’re terribly useful.”

Tina smirked. “Alright, so a fortune-teller. Did he give you a name, or is he expecting you to drink-” she made a quick count “-eighteen cups of tea?”

“Lucía Pescara de la Luna,” he said. “My guess is, she’s the only actual witch in the lot.”

They moved into the little community of tents. More people gathered here, locals and tourists alike, skirting through the trails of incense wreathing the camp like mist. It was all draped banners, east-Indian or Roma flair, with a hint of circus-like theater. Nothing in the first several draped pavilions struck him as particularly real, magically.

One woman had her eyes heavily smudged with kohl, a silvery moon medallion resting against her forehead. Her client was a local girl, peering eagerly into a murky white globe. As they passed, the woman leaned back, beringed fingers twitching, pretending to be overtaken by spirits.

Newt wanted to giggle at the display, but Tina was casting the woman a disapproving look. She caught his questioning eyebrow and shook her head. “None of them are real seers. They’re all just swindlers.”

“So are most of the witches and wizards who pretend to see things in palms and knuckle bones,” he said. “True seers are laughably rare.”

At Tina’s look, he gave a bit of a half smile. “I failed Divination,” he admitted.

Tina—who had been very close to the top of her class—seemed shocked by this. “How?”

Newt grinned, still not ashamed as his father would have liked him to be. “I may have written a very strongly-worded essay on outlawing the practice of reading entrails, and called the notion of sacrificial augury absurd and unsubstantiated by empirical proof.”

Tina closed her eyes in an almost horror of disbelief. “That…definitely sounds like something you’d say.”

“Professor Delphius tried to give me three months detention,” he said. “But as you can’t punish a student for doing their assignments, he settled on the lowest possible marks.”

They passed a man pouring tea for three German tourists, and Tina gave him a little bump with her hip. “What’s your opinion on tea leaves?”

“Best for making tea.”

“Cards?”

“No. Nor crystal balls or any other sort of scrying—they’re all rubbish unless you’re an actual seer.”

Tina nodded, seeming to consider this. “Do you think anyone’s actually got the gift?”

“Probably. I’ve never met any, but I do know some very smart people who believe in it. Prophecies and such. You know, the sort of rubbish that gets hapless Aurors and magizoologists tangled up in other people’s intrigue.”

Tina squeezed his arm, “Shhh,” she said, but her lips were fighting a smile.

He was still gazing at her when she nodded toward something. Newt followed her look to a woman sitting amid a pavillion of deep purple silk, spangled in indigo. She wore the traditional attire of a Brazilian witch—her hair wrapped in a gold cloth headpiece that made a halo-like crescent over her head. Her patterned skirt jutted out sharply at the hips, held by a sort of cylindrical scaffold.

She had deep, terra-cotta skin and heavy-lidded eyes of palest gold.

“That’s her,” Tina said.

Newt nodded. “Yeah. Her book is bound in dragon skin.”

“Wand in sleeve. Crystal ball is real. And she’s got bespelled earrings,” Tina noted.

Newt focused not he flat golden discs and realized, as they caught the light, that this woman…knew things. He needed to approach, to speak with her, to hear her wisdom. There was a desperate question he needed to ask and she had the answers.

He shook off the beguilement. “They certainly are,” he said.

Tina was smiling, and he realized that it was she, this time, holding him back.

“Little susceptible to suggestion, are we?”

“Why?” he asked. “Do you have one in mind?”

A moment later, he couldn’t quite believe he’d said it. Tina blinked at him. Had he honestly just flirted with her? He couldn’t decide if he felt proud of that or embarrassed.

Finally, her surprise cracked, and he saw a flicker of something in her eyes that set the base of his spine to tingling. She smirked.

“I’ll see if I get inspired.” Then she cut her gaze back to the woman at the table. “Her client is leaving.”

They started in her direction. Almost at once, the woman looked at them and began shuffling a stack of cards. Her pale gold gaze skated around their figures, quick, measuring looks. Her eyelids fluttered, brief flashes of all-white eyes. When they were within a few meters, she set down her cards and drew her wand.

Newt felt the frisson of a magical barrier sizzle into being behind him.

“Scamanders,” the woman said. Then her expression flickered. “No… Just the one right now.

Newt shook his head, nonplussed. “I’m sorry. My brother and I aren’t…we don’t usually work together.”

Lucía Pescara de la Luna regarded him frankly, and something about her eyes made him feel strangely known. She looked at Tina. “When are you, my love?”

Tina shook her head. “I’m sorry? Tina. My name is Tina Goldstein.”

“I know who you are, my love. Very spiky aura. Your name suits you well. But when are you?”

Tina looked at Newt, eyes a bit wide, and shook her head. He shook his back.

“I’ve only just gotten to Rio,” she said. “It’s September. 1929. I’m…28.” Merlin, he always forgot she was so much younger. She didn’t seem it. Then again, six years meant less now than it once would have.

de la Luna nodded for Tina to go on.

“I’ve just left my job in America-”

“Ah!” this seemed to orient her. “I understand. And when are you, my love?” She turned to Newt.

“Er…” A large part of him wanted to answer with his age, but something told him she was looking for an event, rather than “Thirty four.”

“Ah,” said de la Luna, as if he’d spoken. “Yes, that explains it. Not yet. Soon. Or never—that is also a possibility. Come sit, my loves. You are both fluctuating too much. The fates are in conflict over your next hours.”

Newt, utterly confused, looked at Tina. In her eyes, he found the silent agreement to present a united front.

She let go of him to kneel on the woven rug. NEwt immediately felt her loss. de la Luna reached beneath her little table and extracted a pipe, lighting it with a tap of her wand. She flicked her golden eyes at Tina.

Tina’s head ticked back a notch, then she leaned forward, her gaze determined and keen all at once. “You’re a Legillimens,” she said.

De la Luna grinned around her pipe. “Your Occlumancy is well-practiced,” she said. “I am not as powerful as your sister. This is why I needed to ask when you were. I suppose I might have gotten some answers from y—from Senhor Scamander.” She drew her pipe from her mouth and blew out a stream of purplish smoke. “I apologize. Timelines become difficult with an Occlumens. I may stumble.”

Newt was taking this all in, trying to decide how much of this woman was theater, and did not like at all how little of it seemed to be put-on. There was real frustration in de la Luna’s brow, and her hands trembled a bit on the stem of her pipe.

“You’re a Seer,” he stated. It wasn’t really a question.

“I am,” she said. “Though your brother was harder to convince. No. He will be.”

Newt shook his head, feeling rather past his depth.

“Have you brought the poor creature?”

He wished there were some way of confirming beyond a doubt that this woman was Lucía Pescara de la Luna. But, as there had been no true password, he would have to trust. Fig might have been a good indicator, had the woman not also been a Legillimens.

He reached into his coat, pulling a disillusioned Fig from his pocket. The marmoset blinked sleepily, then focused on de la Luna and gave a startled cry of recognition. A moment later, Fig was running around the woman’s broad skirt, leaping onto her shoulders and headdress, diving back down.

Fig’s recognition consoled him more than any password might have. He’d trust a beast’s nose and intuition over human fallibility any day.

“Yes, my love!” de la Luna cried. “Yes, there you are. There you are. Now, come, sit here.” She patted the balcony of bosom beneath her white blouse, and the marmoset complied. “There you are, my love. Let me look.”

Newt felt Tina shift. She’d been sitting on her knees, still and watchful. Now she shifted her hips to the side, leaning on one palm toward Newt. He lifted a hand to her back without thinking, acknowledging her presence.

Lucía’s eyes were half shut, mere crescents of white sclera showing. She caught her breath, and Newt watched the slow build of tears in her white eyes. Then her eyes rolled forward again, gold irises coming into focus, and she blinked, dislodging the tears.

“So Armando is dead,” she says. “And in such a way. Ay, Olofi.”

“Is she reading Fig’s memories?” Tina whispered.

Newt nodded, coming to a similar conclusion. He hadn’t realized that was possible—perhaps it wasn’t, if one didn’t have the particular combination of gifts that de la Luna had.

“Can you see what happened?” he asked. “It wasn’t clear in the residual magic.”

The Seer wiped at her eyes, smearing long tracks of kohl up her temples. “Yes. I though my vision to be metaphorical. I saw a shadow pass over Armando in dreams. I saw him vanish. I interpreted this to mean he was taken by Grindelwald’s dogs.”

“I’m not sure how that isn’t still symbolic,” Tina said. “A shadow seems to indicate danger, or the unknown.”

“Yes, my love. And many allies are beneath that shadow now. It twines between you both like a cat.”

Newt went very still. His mind had caught something earlier and had been working in the safety of his subconscious. But now it pushed something forward for scrutiny.

If the shadow that had fallen across Fig’s owner wasn’t metaphorical, and what he’d seen in the golden haze of his tracking spell was true, then there was one very, very unwelcome possibility.

De la Luna turned her eyes to him. “Yes,” she said.

“What,” Tina demanded. Newt couldn’t look at her. His mind had stuttered to a halt, tripping into sudden, shocked cold. “Newt. What?”

“A…lethifold.”

Her face was troubled. “That’s the shadow thing from your book? The one that…”

“Consumes wizards, leaving no traces behind,” he finished. Newt put his fist against his mouth and screwed up his eyes, trying to focus past the beating wings of panic in his chest.

A lethifold. A bloody lethifold.

“It’s a freak accident,” he murmured into his hand. But his mind was telling him two impossible things at once. “No. It can’t be. Why old a lethifold slip so far into a city to attack this particular man, and not the thousands of easier victims? That makes no sense, on a predatory level.”

“It must have been trained,” said de la Luna. “Trained to hunt.”:

“Lethifolds are class five,” Tina said quietly.

Newt nodded, wishing he could be proud that she’d memorized parts of it. “Yes. Untrainable. Unthinkably dangerous. I’ve only ever seen…”

He was beginning to sweat despite the evening’s dropping temperature. Tina’s hand found his, her palm covering the pack of his hand, fingers tucked into his.

“It must be restrained somehow. Someone has it captive and releases it near the target.”

Finally, Newt forced himself to speak. “The others need to be informed. The other people working underground. Do you know how to contact any of them?”

De la Luna shook her head. “They come to me for fortunes, and I read their minds. Those reports, I pass on directly. Many have missed several weeks.”

Tina nodded. “You’re probably not the only handler,” she says. “You won’t know everyone in the field.”

Newt squeezes her hand. He hates that she’s right, because it means more people will be unaware of the danger unless they can find a way to get the message out.

The Seer scooped Fig from her breast and gently handed her back to Newt. “I was to inform Senhor Scamander of a few more missing friends, but with the fate of Armando at last understood…”

Newt stiffly tucked Fig back in his pocket, the other hand still clamped beneath Tina’s. He couldn’t seem to stop looking at the top of the reading table. Chunks of crystal. Cards. “There won’t be any missing people to find,” he finished.

There was a protracted silence during which Newt tried to convince his body to stop sending out signals that made him want to duck into a hole.

“He was supposed to get tea leaves read,” Tina said quietly. Thank Merlin for her. He’d totally forgotten.

Newt managed to nod.

de la Luna sucked on her pipe and blew a thoughtful series of smoke rings toward Tina. “Yes. But I think it is the cards for you, my love.”

“Oh, I don’t need a reading.”

“Your fate shivers,” the Seer said. “You will draw one card.”

Tina squeezed Newt’s hand and let go as Lucía de la Luna shuffled her tarot deck and spread them on the table with an efficient, no-nonsense sweep.

“Quickly now,” she said. “Draw.”

Newt cheats a glance at Tina. She’s frowning. She slides a card forward. In a quick, merciless movement, the seer flipped the card.

The card bore the image of a tall tower, forked lightning striking its crown. A woman plummeted from the window on its side.

It was not, as far as Newt remembered, a happy card.

“Change,” said Lucía. “Sudden. Large. Difficult. Something in your life has already come crashing down—your family. Your job. The threads of your past are snapping, one by one. You are plummeting toward something, at the mercy of what lies below.”

She swept the cards back into a deck and shuffled them again. “Cut.”

Tina obeyed.

Then Lucía drew another card. Death, inverted. Newt felt his throat tighten, but Lucia wasn’t done.

“This can mean two things, my love,” she said. “It clarifies what I see of you now. Your fate, trembling. One path I have seen—a woman I know when I look into your eyes. She is who you may become, if this new path does not come to pass But the way forward is no longer clear.”

She draws two more cards, setting them to the right of death. “The Ace of Pentacles. Here, the start of a new life. A metaphorical death as you release the shackles of your past. Two of cups…”

The Seer’s eyes turned inward, going momentarily gentle. She draws another card, and without even looking, says. “Four of Wands. Yes. The woman born of this change is who I saw when you approached. She is strong, and she knows joy.”

Her expression clouded. “The other way…” And she drew a card to the left. Ten of swords. “Death ends your journey. If this will happen, it will happen soon.”

Newt’s hand found Tina’s arm, and this time he couldn’t quite catch the canter of his heartbeat before it got away. His face was flooding with heat, dread building in the pit of his stomach.

Lucía’s eyes rolled back, flashing white. “But this possibility is newly formed. It is not set.”

“How do I make sure it doesn’t happen?” Tina said, her voice a bit breathless.

“My love,” Lucía said, reaching for the deck again. She turns over another card, Fortune. “It is not in your hands.” Then, at last, she flipped the final card. She turns over Three of Swords and looks up, directly at Newt.

Implication hit him with black force. Clouds crowded in. The sound of thunder—no, the shudder of bombardment. Curling tendrils of black cloaks sucked toward him. Shame, hot and horrible, clawed up Newt’s throat.

“Tea,” said Lucía’s sharp voice. “Drink it now.” A cup was shoved into his hands, and Newt drank it, not caring that it scalded the length of his tongue and burned white hot down his throat.

Lucía seized the cup, and her voice was sharp when she spoke. “Tell me what it is you fear, my love. Right now.”

Newt forced out the obvious answer. “You’ve just told us Tina might die.”

“Older,” she says, eyes still peering in the cup. “Loss of confidence. Past terrors, haunting your present mind. War—yes, your time then. Shadows, death, and your heart still bleeds. When was the last nightmare.”

“Years,” he said hoarsely. “Five or six. It’s been more than a decade since the war—I don’t think about it much.”

But his throat felt tight, as if bottling up some truth even Newt didnt’ want to know.

“The lethifold.” He forced himself to say it. “AS far as anyone knows, the only way to fend it off is with a patronus charm. I…” Shame welled up in him, sticky and dark. “I haven’t…managed a fully corporeal patronus since I left the Eastern Front.”

Tina’s hand found his arm. “Newt…”

He shook his head, hating that she knew this about him, yet unable to keep it from her. “Dementors. They love battlefields. They feed on fear and desperation. And there we were—wizards and muggles alike, a perpetual feast.” He looked up, to where the swags of purple and indigo silk coalesce at the top of the arch, trying to regain some of his rapidly-slipping composure.

“I worked with the Sparrow units,” he said. “Tracking people—mostly allies—across enemy lines. I was to retrieve them, or at least the information they gathered. The problem is, when you’re across enemy lines and you encounter a dementor, sometimes…”

Tina’s head pressed into his shoulder. “A patronus would give away your position,” she said.

Newt nodded. Dread rolled into his stomach. “It was not an easy chapter. I lost…far too many of the people I’d been sent after. We all did, I suppose. The strange thing is, I never had trouble with my patronus during the war. It was simple. I could always think of something happy enough. A happy memory isn’t the difficult part. It’s that now, when I think of a patronus charm, I remember the circumstances under which I cast it most often, and…I’m there. Dementors and dead men, people counting on me to bring them home. And I know most of them will never make it.”

He scrubbed a hand over his head, wishing he could claw away the wretchedness.

“It’s not so unusual,” Tina said.

“It’s been, what, eleven years?” Newt said. “One might hope I could get on with it. Theseus never had a problem. Most of the other Sparrows didn’t ever lose it—the ones who made it, anyway.”

Lucia’s hand found his wrist. “Do not compare, my love. You have a great capacity for compassion—a great sensitivity to the pain of others. This is your greatest strength, but it has left you without the shield that those such as your brother carry. It isn’t weakness to bear wounds he does not.”

“Maybe not,” Newt said. “But it does seem to have proven inconvenient just now.”

Tina slid her hand into his. Newt drew it to his chest, shielding it with both hands. He wanted to shield all of her. But she’d never stand behind anyone. He could do his best to protect her, but…if the lethifold was the thing that stalked her…

“You must overcome this,” said Lucía.

Newt swallowed. “I suppose I’ll need to spend the next several days beating bad memories into submission.”

Lucía frowned at him, her golden eyes sad. “There is peace for you, my love. Great joy, and great contentment.”

Not if I lose Tina, he thought.

Lucía clearly heard the thought. She looked at Tina and sighed. “Does he know your name yet?”

Newt looked up, confused. Of course he knew her name. He knew her middle name.

“But do you know what it means?”

Tina groaned. Newt, struck off guard by this sudden change of topic, looked at her. “What, Porpentina?”

She covered her face with her free hand, and he saw that her cheeks were rapidly turning scarlet. It was more color than he’d ever seen in her face. “It’s a family name,” she said, miserable. “Is embarrassment going to kill me? I think that might be it. Forget the lethifold.”

Newt wanted to be curious. He even was, on some level, but it was so hard to feel anything other than dread, and shame.

“What does it mean?” he asked.

Tina muttered something into her hand. He stayed silent, waiting. At last, she slid her hand up to cover her eyes instead of her mouth, and, achingly, said, “Porcupine.”

It took him a beat to process it, but then, despite everything, he smiled. Merlin’s Beard, it was too perfect. She was exactly like a porcupine.

“My great grandmother was called that for some damn reason, and I don’t know why—ugh, this is exacrtly why I go by Tina.”

“I like porcupines,” Newt said, and bumped her shoulder with his.

“You also like murtlaps and fire slugs and flobberworms.”

“No one likes flobberworms,” he said.

“Go,” Lucía said. “Both of you. I must dream on these problems. Come to me again, when your fate has found anchor.” She reached across her table, taking each of their hands as they rose. “You will be better at protecting each other than yourselves. Cleave together.”

They stumbled from her pavillion, passing through the magic barrier and back into cool air and the distant riot of trumpets. Newt felt unsteady. He wasn’t sure how to stand correctly. How to breathe correctly.

Tina was looking at him, and there was strength in her gaze, and compassion. For him, he realized. His weakness, his shame.

She reached up, took his face in both hands, and made him look at her. “I’ve been casting a fully corporeal patronus since I was sixteen. If there’s a lethifold around, I’m going to put my spiky little quills in its stupid shadowy face.”

“Is it a porcupine?” He asked, looking at her eyes, because they were the only thing grounding him. “Your Patronus, I mean.”

“It’s a horse,” she said. “You jerk.”

He pulled her into his arms. “I’m staying with you,” he said. “Until…well, I assume we’ll twig the moment.”

She leaned into him, her hands sliding from his face to the sides of his neck. He felt her chin on his shoulder. “Yeah,” she said. “I’d like to recommend somewhere there aren’t mosaics listening into the conversations we probably need to be having.”

“Where is it you’re staying?” Her hair was soft against his cheek. Thick and cloudy with trapped cigar smoke and incense.

She didn’t answer. She disapparated, and Newt was happy to let her take them away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
> 
> I have been waiting for the PTSD Patronus Dysfunction since I started this damn fic.
> 
> GAH.
> 
> *dies*


	13. Make the Ground Beneath You Feel Like Quicksand

Of course she was afraid. But if given a choice between being in danger herself or knowing someone she loved was in danger, Tina would always choose the former. At least when the danger was pointed in her direction, she could focus. Not like with Queenie, when her mind spun out a thousand fears of living without her, each one steeped in regret.

So it seemed perfectly reasonable for her to be the calm one while Newt paced around the inside of his case, grim and restless.

She’d apparrated them to the edge of the barrier at Castelobruxo and they’d gone in only long enough to rescue his case. Then—though the case would have been secure enough—she’d apparrated them to the street outside her room in Lapa.

She was glad now that she hadn’t had much time to unpack. Normally, the longer she was in a place, the more her belongings expanded. A bit like an occamy, she could expand to fill any size room. It only took a book here, shoes over there, her jacket tossed on the bed. Newspapers and notes were normally the worst of it—spread out for ease of viewing.

Not that Newt probably cared. The only reason his flat was so neat was because he’d barely lived in it. If anything, her little rented room needed more of the clutter and warmth that suggested a lived-in place. She and Newt both seemed to thrive in a bit of organized chaos.

It had been an unspoken agreement to enter the case. It felt a bit like a sanctuary for them as much as the creatures, and in the warded safety of her room, it was an extra layer of protection.

But Newt was making himself busy, feeding and medicating his flock in a state of barely-concealed panic. He seemed almost to be trying to outrun it. She’d already fed the fwoopers and the mooncalves. Now she sat on the steps of the enclosure where Frank the thunderbird had once perched, tossing coins from a handful she’d scooped form Pest’s nest. The niffler dove after them, sliding under enclosure edges and scampering into shrubs.

At last, Newt trudged down one of the pathways. His posture was hunched, hands fidgeting at his jacket pockets and head anlgled down. He angled for her, walking like someone with shackles on. Tina tossed the last three coins in different directions and brushed off her hands letting him approach her.

He approached, hesitated, then sat beside her, leaving just a bit of room. Tina wanted to scoot into him, but held back, sensing he needed the space to think.

He was embarrassed by what he’d revealed at de la Luna’s, and she could sense shame curling off him like smoke. Tina frowned at his hand, which was fidgeting now at a seam in the knee of his trousers. She wanted to say something, but nothing seemed right. She knew other Aurors who’d fought in the war, but their stories wouldn’t soothe him. Tina had been safe at school, and the conflict had been a distant worry, far across the sea. She couldn’t pretend to know what he’d endured in the theater of war.

She didn’t often feel the four years between them, but right now, he seemed to have lived much more life than she, and an unexpected stretch of it in darkness. It was hard to accept, but she couldn’t protect him from the shadows that lingered.

The only thing she could do was sit here, not judging him for it. Even if she was scared. Even if Senhora de la Luna had all but spelled out that her survival rest in Newt’s ability to cast a patronus. None of that was his fault.

She turned her hand over, palm up, and balanced it on his knee.

He looked at it for a moment, and she thought she knew what he was thinking. The person in danger was comforting him. It should be the other way around.

But he relented, carefully curling his hand around hers. He turned it over, fingers of his opposite hand brushing the back of her wrist.

“I don’t want you to think…” he cut himself off. Reset with a breath. “I don’t dwell on the things that happened in the war,” he said. “Really, I’m not one of the ones who had a terrible time of it. I didn’t lose family. I didn’t have to…do things I regretted very often.”

Tina understood he meant killing, and she tried not to let the admission shock her. Somehow, she’d imagined him finding a way around it. Maybe it had been naive to assume that, as a Sparrow, his missions had all been about stealth and rescue, or that all of them had gone off without a fight.

“I don’t want you to think I tear myself up about the war on a regular basis. I got on with things, honestly. I had a career I loved that helped me cope. Everyone had problems after—even Theseus—but given a year or so, the real world stops feeling like a dream. Eventually, dreams stop feeling like war. The memories hurt, but they erode. I honestly don’t…” he shook his head. “I honestly don’t know why I can’t just get on with this as well.”

Tina frowned, wishing she had answers for him. She knew the effects of trauma on a patronus were documented, but she hadn’t really ever looked at the subject closely. Still, it might be good to remind him he wasn’t alone.

“Aren’t there others who’ve had the same trouble?” she asked, watching their hands as if they were two creatures curling together for comfort.

Newt fiddled with her knuckle, his eyes distant. After a moment, he nodded. “A lot of the people the Sparrows rescued, who’d been prisoners, been tortured or made to watch it done to someone else.” Tina flinched. “Some of them…well. Casting a patronus wasn’t the only problem,. Theseus told me there were Aurors as well. Most of them ‘got past it’, and he was sure I would too. Which might have been more helpful if he hadn’t been recently awarded an Order of Merlin.”

Tina winced. She was sure she’d done the same thing to Queenie. “What about the other Sparrows?” she asked.

A protracted silence followed, during which Tina worried she’d asked the wrong thing. Newt laced her hand between both of his. He seemed to be searching for language.

“So…” his voice was all smoke, vanishing into the relative din of the menagerie. “So few of us came home. I don’t really know.”

Tina’s heart twisted. She remembered Cragslaw saying a lot of them hadn’t made it. “How many?”

“There were nearly seventy to start. I didn’t join up until the end, after the dragons phased out. There were only about twenty or so left then, and I think about fifteen of us made it to the end of the war. Of those, three have since…” His thumbs lifted in a sort of helpless gesture. “Gone.”

“They killed themselves,” Tina said, needing to confirm.

He nodded. “Brought the dementors back with them, as my brother put it. That’s why-” and he looked up now, gazing at the bubbles of doxies and pixies floating above. “I don’t feel as though I’m all that affected, most of the time. Fighting didn’t change who I am. I didn’t even do all that much of it. And I know-” he said, accurately predicting her interruption “-I know it doesn’t matter how much I did. I even accept that I had trouble. Everyone had trouble. Theseus had trouble.”

She leaned into him, watching Pest waddle by with his clinking pouch. “But?” She could feel it coming.

He lifted the hand covering hers, stretching long fingers down between his boots for the niffler. Pest spotted the gesture and changed course, waddling up to have his head stroked.

“But I didn’t do anything about it,” he said. “I didn’t want help. I pretended it was fine. I went back to the Beast Division. I wrote some articles, got the commission for my book. I went haring off around the globe and I stopped having nightmares. I convinced myself that, given enough time, I wouldn’t have to actively work through it. I suppose I don’t have to tell you that strategy didn’t work.”

Tina glanced up, looking at the edge of the hippogriff enclosure.

“What do you normally do?” she asked. “With Ernie. Or the Zou’wu. Or any other animal that’s gone through something. How do you help them.”

“Trust. And a lot of time we apparently don’t have.”

She squeezed his hand. “We have some.”

He set pest down, and together, they watched the niffler scurry to his nest. “I suppose I’ll need to try casting.”

He drew his wand from the loop on his trousers. Tina stayed quiet, keeping a loose hold of his left hand. His eyes closed, and she knew he was searching for a happy memory. After a few moments, he raised his wand.

She felt the shudder as he spoke the words, “Expecto patronem.”

A lucent stream rippled from the end of his wand, like silvery incense smoke. He opened his eyes and gave a frustrated sight.

“It’s not nothing,” Tina said, scanning the spellwork. “Just a little thin.”

“You’re understating,” he said, but he sounded a bit better. Possibly, the presence of the positive force—however thin—was helping his mood. “This might cause a lethifold to sneeze.”

“Try again.”

Newt drew in a deep breath, squaring up. He let it out slowly, closing his eyes again. This time, his mouth twitched a bit finding the happy memory. He raised his wand. An instant before he spoke, she saw the flicker in his brow. She felt him tense.

“Expec-”

“Stop.”

Newt froze, his wand out.

“Where have you just gone?” Tina asked. “In your head. What did you think about.”

He opened his lips, but nothing came out for several seconds. “I—Russia. Something that happened in Russia.”

“Walk me through it.”

“Tina. It’s not-”

“I’ve got you. Walk me through it.”

He hesitated. She wasn’t sure whether he was reluctant because he wanted to protect her from whatever it was, or if he simply didn’t want to relive it out loud.

“This is how you do it, Newt. One step forward.”

He gave a sort of choking laugh. “Are you going to throw me a dead guinea pig once I’m done?”

“If it’ll help.”

“It will certainly take my mind off things.”

She squeezed his hand. “You’re stalling. Tell me where you are.”

His momentary humor vanished, and she felt his hand in hers go clammy. “I’m…in Russia. Near the border of (TK). I’ve been tracking a pair of dark wizards for a few days. They’ve got prisoners. Three Muggles. Two Ukrainian witches, young, probably fifteen, both of them, and a Romanian Auror. He was a spy. They’ve been torturing them off and on for over a week.”

“How did you know that?”

“The residue for the Cruciatus curse is hard to mistake.”

Tina knew it from textbooks—the residue would settle on a human’s shape, then spiderweb and fracture.

“…and,” it was costing him something to say this. “They’d left pieces. I got the sense that they were—that they knew I was following. They were leaving breadcrumbs. A finger. A tooth. That morning, I’d tried to preserve an ear. Had it stuffed in a handkerchief in my jacket. I didn’t know if maybe…”

Tina squeezed his hand. He squeezed back, quick and hard.

“It was just west of the fighting. The dementors were everywhere. I kept my patronus out, patrolling with me, just to keep them at bay. But it was days, slogging through mud and broken muggle cities, hooded figures following me around, hoping for a meal. And in the end, I lost them all. The muggle soldiers. The two girls—one to death, one to madness.”

“What happened to the Auror?”

“I…it was the only time I ever…” A shudder passed down his back. “I got close and found that his…eyes had been removed. All his fingers had been cut off and his-” he had to take a breath here “-the flesh of his legs had been just…carved away. Down to bones. Hexed beyond healing. He…”

He wanted to die. Tina knew. She understood. But she had to wait for him to say it. He had to speak the words and get them out.

“He told me to kill him. They’d left his tongue, you see—so he could keep giving them information. I didn’t…think I could do it. Not with a curse. But I’d picked up a lot of morphine from one of the abandoned muggle field hospitals—it’s basically muggle poppywillow, and it’s deadly if you take too much. So I…gave him too much.”

His voice had gone monotone, and there was a tremor sneaking through his body.

“I stayed with him. I left when he was gone. But I couldn’t get my head together. It almost didn’t feel real. When you…kill someone with magic, you have to say the words out loud. Or in your head. You have to mean it, and mean to do it. It didn’t matter if I meant it, or if I wanted it—when I gave him the muggle drugs, he died.

"I started to…go into shock, I think. I apparrated, but I ended up only a mile or so away. I tried again and same thing. Just broken roads and muggle planes in the distance. I might have tripped. I might have sat down, I don’t remember, but I was on the ground, trying to get my head on straight, when they came over the rise. Dementors. Four of them. I suppose they could—well, I was not in a good space. They were hungry. I remember seeing the four of them coming toward me, and thinking…that was it. That was going to be how it ended, because I couldn't think of anything at all just then, except how wretched the world seemed.”

His face was cold and still, eyes fixed on something in the middle-distance. He wasn’t shaking anymore, either. He’d simply gone utterly still. “That’s where I go,” he said. “Just as I start to say it, no matter what. I find myself in that moment.”

“You got through that,” Tina said. “How?”

“I don’t really know. I just said the words. I don’t even think I had a happy memory.”

“What were you thinking about?”

She started to shake his head, but paused. “The Auror had a pocket watch,” he said. “I took it back with me, for his family. I was thinking ‘I need to bring it back for them’. And I thought about…” he looked confused for a moment. “I thought about my family.”

And for Newt, she knew, that would have been odd. Of Newt’s family, she’d only met Theseus, but from the hints she’d gleaned in his letters, his relationship with his parents had been positive, but awkward. They loved their oddball son. They just didn’t understand him, or his willingness to walk straight through rules, laws, and mortal peril for the sake of a beast in need.

But he’d known they loved him, and that love had been there to catch him when everything else had failed.

“What did you do?”

“I cast a patronus.”

“And it worked?”

“It did.’

Tina leaned her head on his shoulder, pulling his arm into her chest like she had when they’d been walking along the aqueduct. They remained that way for a long time, watching the flitting movements as the daylight creatures bedded down, and simulated night set nocturnal eyes opening like dawning stars.

She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that a single session of unburdening would solve his patronus problem. She’d read reports on traumas endured by Aurors in the field and knew that the knots of guilt and shame and sadness and fear could take months of work with trained healers to untangle. Still, she had to hope this was enough to dislodge that hard plug of memory stopping him. If what Lucía de la Luna had read in the cards was true, it might be up to Newt to keep her alive.

Newt leaned his head against hers. “I suppose I ought to try again,” he said. Tina wanted to tell him it was alright—that he could take more time to process. But she sensed that too much gentleness right now might damage his confidence, as if she thought he was weak, or broken.

“What’s your memory?” she said, wanting to keep him saying things out loud, making them real. “The good one? Do you have a one you normally use?”

“Oh, er… I have a few. Sort of like a deck of cards. I shuffle through them.”

“That’s how I do it too.”

He was quiet a moment, and Tina thought he might be editing—thinking of a memory he thought he could tell her.

“A lot of times, I think about when I passed the Auror exam,” she said. “Or when Queenie graduated from Ilvermorney. Or when I got chosen by the Thunderbird.”

Newt nodded. “Crossing the lake at Hogwarts was a good one. There are boats that you get into your first year, and they take you to a grotto under the school. The rest of the time, you go in carriages, until you graduate. Then they put you back in the boats. It’s symbolic. A sort of passage over water, signifying transition and metamorphosis and all that.”

She cast him a sideways glance, privately marveling at his easy knowledge. “What about getting…what do you call it when you’re put into your houses?”

“Sorted. And that was more a moment of relief than happiness. I knew it would either be Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. I didn’t want Ravenclaw, really—there’s a lot of pressure to get good marks and you have to solve a riddle to get into the common room, which seemed tedious.”

“So tell me a good one.”

His thumb rubbed the depression of her palm. Tina tried not to relax, but his hands were warm and well-worn, and their subtle working strength triggered in her an instinctive comfort. You’re safe, that instinct seemed to whisper, as if across distant millennia, from a time when magic was shaped by cruder means, and the call of wild things pealed just outside the firelight. These hands can protect you. It’s okay to let down your guard.

Of course, that instinct wanted her to believe he could fight off the dangers. Newt would probably have already made friends with whatever predatory terrors lurked in the dark and trained them to fetch. Which was itself a sort of protection.

“The first time I saw a dragon,” he said at last. “I was twelve. Home for the summer. My father was still a Ministry mediwizard, then, and he was asked to be onsite for a field demonstration involving a Hungarian Horntail. He brought me along to watch, which he likely hadn’t asked permission for, but…” He shrugged, giving a partial smile. “Well, he never scolded me for ignoring senseless rules.”

“Senseless rules like, don’t bring a child to a dragon pit?”

“There were handlers. And a fence.”

“Oh,” she said, laughing. “A fence.”

He heard the irony in her tone and shot her a glittery-eyed look. The corners of his lips twitched. “Anyway, it made a big impression. I can picture the way the fog was hovering around her like clouds, how the light looked off her scales. I remember the moment she looked at me. I could see in her eyes that she was intelligent, and proud, and furious. I could have happily stayed there the rest of the summer, looking at her.”

He was still rubbing her hand, and Tina was beginning to feel the muscles around her spine go loose despite the fear lurking in the pit of her belly. “Okay. Do you think that’s strong enough?”

“We’ll see.”

He cast the charm again, with a bit of a stronger result. It still wasn’t a fully corporeal creature, but the veil of silver was far more opaque, and lightened some of the terror embedded beneath Tina’s calm exterior.

They talked through another happy memory, and another, and though the patronus got more intense, it never did form up.

By this point, Tina’s eyes felt raw and heavy. The presence of that silvery mist seemed to have driven back the lion’s share of her anxiety, and the sustained comfort of Newt’s hand in hers had cast its own sort of spell. Her blinks were becoming longer, her weight cheating sideways into Newt’s shoulder.

“You should sleep,” he said.

Tina wanted to. But she didn’t want to climb the stairs, leave the case, and crawl under the unfamiliar covers in that narrow bed. She didn’t want to feel that exposed. Part of her had been spoiled by his hand in hers, and she didn’t want to lose the comfort it offered. Even if fortune said she wasn’t safe, sitting here in Newt’s case, with their arms linked, hands entwined, she felt the illusion of safety.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I don’t think I could.”

“You’ve nodded off twice.”

Had she? Tina straightened up with a thrill of determination. “No, I’m …” But no description would come to her. She’d never felt this peculiar combination of emotions before, dread and hope and determination and helplessness. She craved the comfort of his arms around her again, that feeling she’d had when he kissed her head and she’d remembered what it had been like to feel safe in the heart of her family.

The thought of being alone right now brought with it a sweep of sick dread. She felt a chill working up her spine, the hairs on her neck lifting as she imagined lying in bed, only empty air and shadows surrounding her. Her back felt suddenly exposed, even down here.

“I’m scared,” she admitted. His grip on her hand tightened.

“So am I.”

At least they were both acknowledging it. She didn’t have to feel weak about it.

“It seems okay while I’m sitting here, feeling like I’m doing something. Or at least watching you do something. I can’t imagine just going upstairs and closing my eyes like there’s nothing wrong. I’d probably wake up every five minutes, if I slept at all.”

Newt stowed his wand. He reached across his lap and switched her fingers to his wand hand, unwinding their linked arms. She understood he was going to put his arm around her and scooted into his side, erasing the last few inches between them. His arm folded around her, a warm protection against the air at her back, and after a few seconds of shifting weight, they settled against each other.

She closed her eyes, her head tipping against the concavity of his neck and shoulder. After a few moments, he released her hand and linked his other arm around her. Tina twisted a bit to get her arms around his waist.

Now she was practically dreaming, seduced by the false safety of Newt’s case, the secure hold of his arms around her, and the warm scent of his shirt collar. There was the slightest sway to his body, and she knew she was being encouraged to drop deeper into that place of comfort an sleep.

Tina could see why so many creatures crawled into his lap. She’d have traded her wand for less dignity in that moment.

She must have dozed, skimming the surface of sleep only to rise from it when gentle fingers combed hair from her neck, or a graphorn rumbled in the distance. His voice sounded so much like a dream when he said. “Come on, Tina,” that she didn’t immediately respond to the upward pressure of his arms.

She woke up enough to stumble into the feed room, where he aimed her at the camp bed. Tina, her usual filters obliterated by sleep, pivoted and walked right back into him, her arms hooking around his ribs. She’d spoken before giving herself permission. “Stay with me.”

She felt the shudder go down his chest, and thought it was relief. It must have been, because he nodded.

Minutes later, the camp bed clearly being too small, Tina found herself sitting on a mound of hay one stall over from the hippogriff egg. Newt had brought his military blankets and tossed them overtop, but it was still a bit of a prickly cushion. Tina didn’t care. He settled in beside her, careful inches away, but when she turned herself against him, he caught her up readily.

Then his hands were on her back, and Tina heard her own shuddering sigh as he drew her weight half over him, protecting her from the worst of the prickling straw, and pulling them more solidly together than they’d ever been.

He was the most real thing she’d ever felt, his breath swelling his chest, the solidity of him pressing warm against her body. His fingers slid under her hair, cupping her neck as her head settled on his shoulder. His heart thumping against her cheek, a little fast, and she felt once again the warm press of his lips on her head.

She reached up, finding his cheek with her hand. The two days of stubble had gone soft under her thumb. He caught her hand, held it there. There was a slow inhale that swelled his chest beneath her, followed by a long sigh.

Tina looked up, the bridge of her nose bumping into his chin.

“I’m going to be okay,” she whispered, hoping that speaking the words might draw that reality closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really hard, mostly because I was trying to walk forward two plotlines with characters basically scared out of their minds.
> 
> My poor babies.
> 
> There were some cute memories in here that got left out, but I’m hoping to work some of them in later.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR. HAVE 2K OF UNREPENTANT FLUFF.

He’d been almost certain that falling asleep meant dreaming of shattered hillsides and cold, rattling breath, but when Newt climbed slowly from sleep, it was from a dream of sitting in the stable, cradling a hatchling foal, ignoring his brother’s advice not to get attached. It never mattered to Newt that the baby hippogriffs would leave as yearlings—it was just the life-cycle of a breeding farm, and the inevitable grief of saying goodbye was a part of that too. The trade off for these moments was worth every pang of sadness.

As consciousness drifted in, he found the scent of hay was real, confirmed by the prickle against his back. And it wasn’t a hippogriff foal stretched over him. The warm jumble of limbs and heartbeats meant he hadn’t slept alone, though the presence of clothes suggested most of that spent actually sleeping.

His mind searched down familiar grooves of memory, sleepily seeking an easy explanation. Had Leta snuck into his dormitory again? He must have woken up just long enough to wind her in his arms, then fallen back asleep. Her nightmares must be back, or she wouldn’t risk it during term. He’d have to sneak her back out.

But there wouldn’t be hay in the Hufflepuff dormitory. Were they at the farm? Summer break…? No, the calls of creatures were from his case. His case. He was more than a decade out of Hogwarts. And Leta…

Had gone. In a tear of cerulean fire. Her dark eyes vulnerable and begging for understanding. “I love you.”

Newt flinched, reflexively tightening himself around the figure in his arms. Her body was lithe and long, her softness too understated to be Leta. This girl was all coltish strength and delicate bones, thick hair smelling faintly of cigar and incense.

Newt came awake instantly, along with every last nerve in his body. Tina was draped over him like a kneazle in a sunbeam, warm and boneless. He registered her heat where his thigh pressed far too snugly between hers. If she woke, there would be no disguising the usual morning encumbrance, and he could talk about human male sleep-cycles, blood flow, and hormone shifts all he liked…with her breath tightening her against him in shallow waves, and the feel of her skin under his fingers, he couldn’t…

…her skin… his hands were on her skin, under the back of her shirt. One fitted to the curve of her waist and the other had ventured up, cupping the delicate sculpture of her shoulder blade.

Suddenly, he was untangling the clamor of memory and lust and logic and panic all trying to determine what exactly had happened to bring about that development.

Her shirt had come untucked. Or he’d untucked it. Or she had. Whatever had happened, it was now gathered at his elbow, the band of her brassiere scraping his wrist. Fashions had changed, too. Made the damn things wider. He’d never resented a scrap of fabric more. If they’d been the simple affair of kerchiefs and ribbon Leta had worn, it would take just a single tug for Tina’s whole back could be bare beneath his hands

Desire bolted down like a straight shot of fire whisky, intense and unmitigated, almost a relief. It cut across his thoughts, allowing several moments of blissful, thoughtless observation. Tina was heavy and close and real against him. Her skin was supple and warm, soft as doeskin, and slightly tacky with sweat. He wanted to cover every inch of it with his hands.

He was surprised to find that, despite all her work as an Auror, the long line of her back was unmarked. What would she think, if her fingers encountered his battery of scars?

Newt’s brain scratched to a halt at the thought of Tina’s slender, strong hands sliding under his shirt and refused to budge from that thought for several long, guilty second.

A snatch of memory came to him, plunging him out of the moment of utter idiot desire. He’d stroked her back last night. She’d buried her face in his neck and he’d tried to soothe her into sleep with his hands… but, Merlin’s beard, when had that moved under her shirt? Had he been conscious at that point? Had she?

He exhaled slowly, trying to regain a grip on his own rebelling body. If she’d been awake at the time, if he had, then it would be fine. But he thought he remembered her finally nodding off, and he couldn’t remember consciously doing it. It was possible he’d dozed off and gone on muscle memory. Leta had been the girl most often in his arms, and she’d always go calm and drowsy when he rubbed her back…in which case, he ought to move his hands back to somewhere Tina and not Leta had given him permission to touch…

With a flinch, he withdrew his hands and smoothed the back of her blouse. More memory was returning now—the reason Tina had needed soothing, and the reason he’d been so convinced of having war dreams. The thought of his patronus, of dementors and lethifolds, put a chill through him. It banked the heat glowing low in his belly, and eased the rigidity of his erection.

Tina’s breathing shifted to the long, deep sighs of someone rising from sleep. Before long, she would open her eyes. He’d watch the tripwire of memory and observation catch back up. He’d see the moment she recalled her predicted death.

What if this was the last time he got to hold her? Really, except for the few hugs they’d shared, this had been the only time. Suddenly, she felt ephemeral as smoke—something he had to catch before it floated away. Newt circled her in his arms, forgoing any cares about her untucked shirt or the negligible stiffness against her thigh.

She made a soft, sleepy grunt as he pulled her tight. Then, once again embodying every sleepy kneazle he’d ever met, she stretched. He almost sighed at the feeling of her arms and legs lengthening, her body extending along his. Fingers twisted into the back of his sleeve, her legs threaded closer with his.

Suddenly, Newt worried she might be dreaming of someone else they way he’d almost done. He didn’t want this to be shaded with memories of either of their past lovers.

He curled his fingers, running his knuckles up her back. “Tina?” She didn’t respond, and he grazed her cheek. “Tina.”

She took in a deep breath and lifted her head slightly, squinting at him. Then she gave an inquisitive little grunt, her voice high and unstable from disuse. It reminded him of a gryphon chick’s sleepy chirp. It was instantly impossible not to smile. He tucked back one of her adventurous locks of hair.

Now that she was looking at him, he really didn’t want to say anything else. He just wanted to pull her back down and enjoy the sweet torture of this contact. But she was blinking at him, slow and expectant, and he had the feeling that she wanted a very good reason to be forced into consciousness.

“I should—er—probably feed the fwoopers before they st-oof!”

Tina had collapsed back over him, burying her head in his shoulder. She mumbled something into his chest. He managed to make out only the word ‘early’.

The word ‘adorable’ floated through his head. “I know it’s early,” he agreed, slipping his fingers under her hair. Her neck was slim under his hand, and banded with tension—that was where she carried it. Probably because she tensed her jaw so much. He worked his thumb along the worst of the tension, gratified at the fingers curling into his shoulder and waist.

Now he was listening, there were stirrings from the graphorn enclosure, near where the fwoopers perched. If they started, it would be hours before the rest of the lot calmed down.

“You keep sleeping,” he offered. “I can-”

The wind jolted out of him as Tina slid both arms around his waist and squeezed. “They can wait,” she said, speaking right up against his neck. “I get you for fifteen more minutes.”

It took a few moments to absorb the feeling of her mouth against his throat, and her demand for exclusive attention. That proprietary statement set off something in his brain, like a catalyst to a potion designed to turn his insides into syrup. He felt the melt start in his stomach, cascading out to his fingertips.

The likelihood he could scrape himself back into solid form was vanishing as quickly as Tina could twist her fingers into the back of his shirt. He wasn’t moving for fifteen minutes. Or fifty. Or ever. Not if Tina wanted him to stay. He would be hers until she said otherwise, and long after.

He worked his fingers into her hair, aware that she was coming more and more awake against him, like a current passing under her skin. He could feel her thinking.

“You’re awake,” he whispered.

“Shh.” Tina nosed into the softness under his jaw, prompting a smile.

“Sorry,” he lied. He tightened his arm around her back, and when he gave her hair a gentle squeeze, she sighed, hugging herself to him. Part of him wanted to use that hold on her hair, to tip her head back and ease his mouth over hers. He was sure she’d let him. In fact, some of the energy coursing between them now seemed to be headed precisely that direction.

He was sorely tempted. So many variables were in line—comfort and privacy, her body against his, the sensuality of the moment itself. Kissing her now made sense in every way…except he knew how it would go. It would start with the energized wonder of first kisses, carry on as they learned how they matched together best and relaxed into the feeling of it. That was when time should cease to mean anything, when they should be allowed to follow whatever direction their desires led, whether that was fumbling off each other's clothes and having sex right there in the hippogriff enclosure, or making out like insatiable teenagers, or anything in between.

He didn’t see that happening. If he kissed her now, it would take less than a minute for them both to start thinking about the prediction of her death. Fear would curl like smoke into that kiss, adding in the desperation of a ticking clock, enflaming everything unnaturally. If he was going to kiss her, he wanted to do it right. There was no place in that for fear.

Of course, Tina might feel differently. Some people wanted to do everything they’d regret not doing, just in case. But Newt wasn’t going to give into that, because she wasn’t going to die. He wasn't going to let her.

She stiffened, dragging her mouth to his ear in a way that made it very difficult to keep the promise he’d just made himself. Her nails dug into his arm.

“Newt…I think there’s a bad-tempered hippogriff looming over us,” she said.

Her breath was warm and wet against his ear. It was three times harder to understand what she’d said.

Newt cracked an eye to see Ernie standing in the door of the enclosure, scarred withers twitching. His head was cocked, clawed forefeet digging at the entrance. Newt watched his pupils dilate slightly as they made eye contact. Then, very deliberately, Ernie placed his beak against an empty pail and nudged it off its hook. It hit the ground with a clang that made Tina jerk.

“Shh,” Newt said, pressing both hands to her back, keeping her still against him. “Don’t—your back’s to him. Let him walk away first.”

“I don’t want to die by angry hippogriff, Newt—the Lethifold is way better.”

“You’re fine. He’s just hungry.”

“And that’s supposed to be comforting?”

“I don’t think he’s ever eaten porcupine. Just guinea pigs, ferrets, and-ow!” She’d jabbed his rib s with the tip of her wand, pushing up slightly onto her elbows to glare at him.

As usual, he found himself thrilled by her threats. It supported the somewhat embarrassing theory that he loved being in trouble with her. Something about her prickly wrath was immensely satisfying, particularly when she looked at him with her eyes glowing, skin flushed, bits of hay in her hair. It was nearly impossible not to be charmed out of his mind.

“One more porcupine joke,” she warned. “Murder-horse or not, I will stun you.”

“With magic as well?”

“Well, I don’t exactly have the leverage for a left hook, so-” she cut herself off, seeming to realize what he’d meant. Her back relaxed under his hands. Her lips twitched, and she seemed to be fighting to stay annoyed. “Yes, with magic as well,” she said.

“Should I act more frightened?” His hands were beginning to rebel, rubbing at the small of her back, combing back into her hair. He felt her pressing down against him, responding to his touch, to the energy still arcing between them. This was the opposite of what he’d resolved to do. Even if he didn’t actively kiss her, it wasn’t fair to encourage her so thoroughly.

But bloody hell, he wanted to. The look in her eyes now was not convincing him to stop. She watched him, watching her. She lowered her head, her hair slipping forward, almost brushing his cheek. Her jaw fitted into the curve of his thumb. Her breath was on his mouth. Resolve vanished. His fingertips pressed into the back of her neck.

Something jabbed softly under his chin. He flicked his gaze to hers, saw the crinkle at the edges of her eyes. Her mouth was so close that he felt her wicked smirk. Her wandtip dragged along hischin.

“I’ll make you a deal, Mr. Scamander,” she said. Her lips grazed his as she spoke, light as a moth’s wing. Interest and desire prickling in his brain, Newt pressed his palm flat to her lower back.

“Not a fair deal,” he said. “I’m clearly under duress.”

Her grin deepened. “I never said it was fair,” she said, voice low and full of humor.

“Aren't Aurors supposed to be honorable?”

“I’m getting more comfortable with coercion.”

He chuckled, combing back her hair. “In that case, carry on.”

“You should practice your patronus.”

If he hadn’t already been smiling, that might have made him do it. Her eyes were flickering with mischief, her lips barely against his. It was bliss and torture all at once. “Did you think I lacked motivation?”

“Didn’t you say something about positive motivation being more useful than threats?”

“Yes. Is the wand at my throat also positive motivation?”

She paused a beat, and he couldn’t help a gentle tug on her hair, encouraging her to lean into him the rest of the way. He could practically feel her resolve folding. “It certainly seems to be,” she murmured.

There was a rough clang and Newt moved his arm just in time to knock aside the grubby pail flying for their heads. Tina gasped, twisting to get her wand arm up. Newt dumped her to the side and rolled to his feet, ready to grab whatever was to hand and fend off further attack.

Ernie stood in the doorway, glaring. Newt stared back, his forearm throbbing where he’d hit the bucket. Ernie stamped a clawed foot.

“That—” Newt said, pointing at the Hippogriff “—was extremely rude.”

The hippogriff fluffed his feathers and chirped, unrepentant. Behind him, Tina climbed to her feet.

“I don’t think he cares,” she said. He felt her move up behind him, followed by the slide of his wand into the holster on his trousers. Newt frowned at Ernie.

“We’re going to work on manners,” he said. “Also timing.”

Behind him, Tina laughed.


	15. (I’m Not Dead)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which your intrepid author is not dead, and I bring you a scene I wrote for later because I literally have zero time to write right now and I feel terrible for abandoning y’all for over a month!!!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’M NOT DEAD.
> 
> You guys, I’m so sorry I fell off the face of the planet. Life sped up for me after Christmas—I had a deadline for a book, a convention, am launching a business, narrating, and still working my day-job. I miss writing this fic but can’t justify the time right at this moment, much though I love it.
> 
> SO, this is a scene I wrote ahead. What has happened between where I left off and this one is: Newt and Tina receive intel on the Grindelwald supporter meeting that it will be attended by one of his high-ranking officers—a legillimens. This is about the only thing that would encourage Tina to risk her life, and if she’s going then Newt is definitely going.
> 
> They sneak into the meeting, disguising themselves with polyjuice potion to look like Professor Guerreiro and Profesora Remedia (bless their hugger spirits).
> 
> The meeting goes off and they don’t see Queenie, but Tina notices someone plucking around in her brain and turns. She meets eyes with a woman in the crowd who stares back at her and then says, ”Teenie...”
> 
> The woman runs, Tina runs after her, and Newt runs after Tina. Dark wizards are waiting in the jungle and suddenly Newt and Tina are fighting for their lives. Newt uses the swooping evil to deflect spells and Tina runs after where she saw “Queenie” go. She catches her, but the woman turns her wand on herself. “For the greater good!” She says, and then uses the killing curse on herself.
> 
> Tina stares, frantically trying to reason that it isn’t Queenie—that the woman must be either a legillimens as well, or it was a mistake...
> 
> She feels a shadow at her back, and turns just in time for the lethifold to whip around her.
> 
> ***
> 
> Newt catches up to Tina. Sees the dead witch, then sees the lethifold and Tina’s struggling form. Fails twice to cast a patronus, and then makes himself calm down, thinks of Tina telling him to practice, the way she smiles, the smell of her letters and the way her fingers felt touching his at breakfast, how he thought he could spend the rest of his life just grazing her knuckles with his.
> 
> He casts a patronus. It’s a water dragon.
> 
> Then....

Tina dragged herself up on a vine-laddered tree, convulsing with awful, sucking gasps. Newt forgot the wisps of power arrowing after the lethifold. He forgot the jungle. He forgot Grindelwald. He forgot anything except the sudden, sickening horror watching, helpless, as the one beast he couldn’t manage smothered and devoured her.

You’re useless, Newt. You almost let her die. You almost lost her.

Tina tried to stand, panic on her face as she cast about blindly, groping at her empty wand holster. She pushed off the tree, staggered, and buckled.

Newt was already moving. He ducked in, and she crashed against him. He was still absorbing the impact when she started fighting, raking at his arms with her nails. “Tina! No-” A guttural scream tore from her throat as she tried to wrench herself from his grasp, landing a kick to his left shin. “No! No, Tina! You’re okay,” he said, ignoring the pain. He caught the back of her neck in a hand, getting better control as he dragged her to his shoulder. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. Breathe, I’ve got you…”

He knew the moment his voice pierced her terror. Tina’s movements slowed, stiffened. The fight bled out of her in increments, but as he continued his mantra of comforting words, his throat shrank around them. She was shuddering, a bone-deep tremor he recognized from wounded beasts and battlefields. The body responding to trauma.

He’d let it happen to her. What if he hadn’t been able to drag up a happy enough memory? What if the wisps of patronus hadn’t been enough to drive it off? She would have died, right there in front of him. Suffocated and broken down and vanished. Gone, just like Leta.

He squeezed his eyes shut, as if that might blot out the terrible vision conjured by his mind. She was breathing a little quieter now, surrendering her slight weight to the brace of his body, but it wasn’t enough. He caught her harder against him, careless, his mind delivering image after image of her, suffering and gone.

She still shuddered, but she had tightened her grip as well, hands fisting in the back of his shirt. He had never wanted to pull someone into him like this, to tuck them into his physical being and keep them safe, lashing out like a dragon at anyone who came near.

“It’s okay. It’s okay…” Tina’s voice this time, weak and shaky and the most welcome sound he’d ever heard. “It’s okay. Shh.”

He hadn’t noticed his own body’s responses, so used to disregarding them. His breath had grown ragged, every muscle tense and shaking with the anticipation of a fight. His fingers were probably making bruises on her back and neck.

And she was comforting him, her hand gentle as it glided up his neck and combed into his hair. Her words lifted straight from his usual mantra. “You’re okay, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

For a long moment, he did nothing, transfixed by her touch and her unimaginable strength. How was she the one comforting him? He eased his head back, needing to look at her. Needing to confirm that she was real and whole and safe.

They were almost of a height. She barely had to look up as they met each other's eyes. Hers were a conflict of emotion, gleaming like fire. He had never wanted so badly to burn.

“It’s alright,” she said, and her fingerprints were a warm on his cheek. “You’ve got me. It’s okay.”

It felt like gravity. He was staring at her, consumed by the sudden understanding that she was in his arms, and against him, and real, and her heart was pounding a counter-rhythm to his own. And then he was falling, and she was rising to meet him, and the shock of her mouth under his was everything.

There was no grace to it, but he didn’t care. He was kissing her, full and hard and like he might never get to do it again. She shuddered, stretching herself against him, a soft, keening whimper resonating up the length of her throat. It was almost a sigh, almost a sob—years of pent-up longing, released in a single note.

It was sweeter than phoenix song. Every hair on Newt’s body stood on end as it rushed through him. If he could have chosen one sound to hear for the rest of his life, it would have been that.

Desire hit him in an unfamiliar cascade. He lost control of his knees, staggering with the full measure of Tina’s weight, and flung out an arm. Fortunately, the entire purpose of a jungle was dense growth. He caught an obliging trunk and clumsily put his back to it.

Her arms were around his neck, and in seconds, she had quite taken over the kiss. Newt was happy to cede territory, overwhelmed by the scent of dark earth and honeysuckle, the density of sensations involved with a kiss like this—pliant lips, wet heat, sharp fingernails in the back of his neck. He was riveted. He did not have the capacity to process it all, let alone the wherewithal to finesse it himself. Kissing Tina was like being hit with a stunning spell. It was like ten shots of firewhiskey, hitting all at once. He was drunk. He wanted to stay that way.

Something needle-like jabbed his chest. Newt jerked, his boots sliding out several centimeters, dropping them lower against the tree. Tina gasped, breaking her hold on him to stabilize their position.

She looked at him, and Newt stared back. Her hair was a wreck, her mouth swollen and slightly abraded—bloody hell, he must remember to shave next time (next time!?)—and there was a whole sunset worth of color in her cheeks. But her eyes were sparkling. She was the most beautiful creature in existence.

A second stab alerted him to the bowtruckle furiously chattering at him from near his shoulder. Newt’s boots slipped further, putting them at an uncomfortably shallow angle. Pickett squalled angrily, pointing its spindly digits at the rumpled breast pocket of Newt’s shirt.

Ah. Well. That had never been a problem before.

“Come on, now, Pickett.” Was that his voice? Merlin’s Beard, what had Tina done to him. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, blinking, trying to set his brain to rights. More chittering. “Pickett, don’t be unreasonable. We would never try to hurt you.”

“Sorry,” Tina added, giving the bowtruckle a wince of a smile.

Pickett grumbled something vaguely admonishing and scrambled onto the tree, scaling the bark with little grunts of annoyance.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Tina said, and the tinge of guilt and worry in her eyes had him reaching for her automatically.

“He’s fine. They’re very…er…” Words. Words words words. Springy. No. That was not the right word. Change course. “He’ll be fine.”

Tina was getting her feet under her, catching at his waistcoat as if to smooth it. “And you?”

“Me?” He repeated, fingers pausing their automatic action of straightening her hair.

“Yeah, you.” 

Newt took a very long breath, stalling. How was he? How could he describe how he was? Overwhelmed. Terrified. Elated. Very much wishing they were anywhere but the scene of her near murder by lethefold. Somewhere comfortable, or safe. His menagerie. No, she wouldn’t find that comfortable. His sitting room. Was that too formal? His bedroom?

No. NO. That would be a disaster. HE would be a disaster. Bloody hell, why could he not think?

She was waiting for an answer.

“Fine!” Bugger. “Good. I meant good. I’m—but you were the one that—are you—how are you?”

He couldn’t look at her now. His hand went to his pocket self-consciously, hooking in. Something to do. Somewhere to put it. Where to put his gaze, though. She was watching him, he saw at the edge of his vision.

At least she was watching him with amusement tingeing her features. That was better than anger.

“Well,” she said. “I’m not dead.” There was a bit of a wobble in the joke.

Newt nodded, the nearness of that possibility encroaching at the corners of his brain. He squeezed his eyes closed. “I’m very, very glad,” he said.

“I got that,” she said. He opened his eyes again.

“Did you? You…did.”

“I thought that was what the last few minutes were about,” she said, pushing herself a bit shakily to her feet and offering him a hand. He took it, but only half used it to pull himself to his feet.

She touched his shirt, where a point of red blossomed in evidence of Pickett’s annoyance. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

No. She was standing too far away, and he wasn’t sure how to cross the distance. Her fingers were warm in his, moving gently, caressing his palm. Her eyes were full of something terrifying and vital, something he wanted to shelter, a hand cupping a flickering candle.

“I…almost hope the lethefold comes back,” he said. The gentle smile on her face faltered, but he was already reaching out, catching it with a hand to her cheek.

“Because I’m confident I could summon a patronus right now.”

The space between them disappeared. He caught a flash of a glorious smile before she kissed him again. This time, Newt forced himself to steady. His hand slid around her back, the other dropping to rest along her neck, supporting her against him. This was a quieter kiss, or really, a series of them. They separated, touching a cheek, the curve of an ear, breathing together for as many heartbeats as they could stand before sinking back together. A slow call and response started up between them, her tongue a soft flicker of invitation, his shyly obliging.

He’d been kissed like this before, but a kiss had never been like this. Not with Leta, “teaching” him in one of the hidden stairways between Hufflepuff and Slytherin houses when they should have been in their common rooms. Definitely not the Grecian mermaid who’d subsequently attempted to drown him, or any of the forward, flirty girls he’d been too startled to battle off in the past.

This was so different. This, he could easily see losing hours to. In fact, he couldn’t think of a why anyone who’d ever been kissed like this ever got their minds made up to do anything else.

A bird’s whooping call sounded through the canopy. And Newt became aware of the deepening shadows of the jungle. Tina, leaning into him, laid her head against his neck with a sigh.

“It’s getting late,” she said. He nodded.

“We should get back,” she said. Newt agreed with another nod.

“Please tell me you’re going to come back to Lapa with me.” What else could he do? He couldn’t take her to Castelobruxo, and he wasn’t capable of letting her out of reach just now. He was almost nodding again when Tina winced, and he realized a secondary motivation behind going home with her. She shook her head slightly, radiating embarrassment. “I don’t mean to-”

“I know,” he murmured, rubbing the back of her neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, it’s not a complete scene, but I hope it at least gives you a bit of that tension released! I will come back when I can! (I have a few...steamier scenes written as well...but the plotty stuff is mostly just outline. I also may or may not have an entire other Newtina fic in outline, which is calling to me right now. It...involves another fun what-if moment of future battles and alternate get-together. And Newt’s parents. And quite a bit of Theseus. And a group of old ladies called “the biddies”)
> 
> *salutes*


End file.
